President of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), Giovanni V. Infantino aka 'Gianni', right, seen here presenting a pennant to President of the BVI Football Association (BVIFA), Andrew Bickerton on August 11, 2019, has promised to address the issue of eligibility requirements for persons wishing to represent the Virgin Islands in football. Photo: VINO

CONCACAF President Mr Victor Montagliani, right, who is chairing the stakeholders committee at FIFA, is also aware of the disadvantage the current eligibility rules by FIFA poses to a small territory such as the Virgin Islands. Photo: VINO

The Virgin Islands senior national team. A number of players born in the Virgin Islands or with belonger status have been unable to play for the Virgin Islands due to FIFA eligibility rules. Photo: BVIFA/Facebook

VI has ‘suffered’ due to FIFA eligibility rules

The matter first came publicly to the fore back in April 2015 by President of the BVI Football Association (BVIFA), Mr Andrew Bickerton, who had said, “The passport issue is a very unfortunate issue from the point of the development of football in the BVI because we run a youth programme from five years old so all players who join the programme, if they want to aspire to play for their national team then they should be given the opportunity to play for their national team.”

Mr Bickerton had said it was “absolutely disgraceful” as “we had to play Dominica and we had six players who were belongers to the Virgin Islands, I think four of them were born here and spent their whole lives here and FIFA did not allow them to represent their country. I think that’s an absolute disgrace.”

Further, Mr Bickerton said the passport issue has caused the VI national team to suffer results wise. “We suffered heavy defeats because of the problem of not being able to get our best players on the field.”

‘We will come up with something soon’

Ask by Virgin Islands News Online whether he was aware of the VI’s predicament and what could be done, Mr Infantino said, “Yes, it is something I am aware of and as a matter of fact we were commenting earlier with Andy [Bickerton] and Victor [Montagliani- CONCACAF President] who is also chairing the stakeholders committee at FIFA who is looking at this precise question. We see the issue, we understand the issue. We understand even more being here and realising it on the spot rather than just a theoretical discussion.”

But, according to Mr Infantino, FIFA needs to be careful not to suddenly create a transfer market for national team players. “The national team is the pride of the country, of the heart, it’s the flag. Anyone playing for a national team is not like playing for a club. It is linked to something special. We need to be careful that if we made the rules, which are very very restrictive today, more flexible that it doesn’t have secondary effects to then open suddenly the gates for easy naturalisations or easy ways in which we create artificial national teams.

“This is one of the strengths of football as well, compared to other sports.”

Mr Infantino noted; however, that FIFA also needs to be aware of particular situations, such as in the Virgin Islands, “which now I fully understand and we gave to look into that, be a bit more flexible” and give more possibilities for players who genuinely are feeling as VIslanders.

“In this situation, I think we need to show more flexibility and we will look into that and we will come up with something very very soon.”

FIFA policy on international eligibility

In March 2004, FIFA amended its wider policy on international eligibility. This was reported to be in response to a growing trend in some countries, such as Qatar and Togo, to naturalise players born and raised in Brazil (and elsewhere) that have no apparent ancestral links to their new country of citizenship.

An emergency FIFA committee ruling judged that players must be able to demonstrate a "clear connection" to a country that they had not been born in but wished to represent. This ruling explicitly stated that, in such scenarios, the player must have at least one parent or grandparent who was born in that country, or the player must have been resident in that country for at least two years.

According to Wikipedia, Togo's registration of naturalised players born and raised in Brazil reportedly influenced FIFA's decision to amend eligibility rules in 2004.

In November 2007, then FIFA President Sepp Blatter told the BBC: "If we don't stop this farce, if we don't take care about the invaders from Brazil towards Europe, Asia and Africa then, in the 2014 or the 2018 World Cup, out of the 32 teams you will have 16 full of Brazilian players."

The residency requirement for players lacking birth or ancestral connections with a specific country was extended from two to five years in May 2008 at FIFA's Congress as part of Blatter's efforts to preserve the integrity of competitions involving national teams.

The relevant current FIFA statute, Article 7: Acquisition of a new nationality, states:

Any player who refers to art. 5 par. 1[note 1] to assumes a new nationality and who has not played international football [in a match (either in full or in part) in an official competition of any category or any type of football] shall be eligible to play for the new representative team only if he fulfils one of the following conditions:

a) He was born on the territory of the relevant association;

b) His biological mother or biological father was born on the territory of the relevant association;

c) His grandmother or grandfather was born on the territory of the relevant association;

d) He has lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association.