Foot­ballers rep­re­sent­ing na­tion­al teams from coun­tries oth­er than their places of birth isn’t a new trend. Eu­se­bio, a Por­tuguese great and the top scor­er at the 1966 World Cup, was born in Mozam­bique. Miroslav Klose, the Ger­man strik­er who holds the record for the most goals at World Cups (16), was born in Poland.

At the 2022 World Cup, we saw the high­est share of for­eign-born play­ers in the event’s his­to­ry: 137 of the 830 play­ers from the 32 teams rep­re­sent­ed coun­tries oth­er than their birth­places, ei­ther through parent­age, grand­parent­age, or nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion.

Clos­er to home, we saw the US Na­tion­al Team on a mas­sive re­cruit­ment dri­ve for for­eign play­ers in re­cent years; the same goes for Ja­maica, Cu­ra­cao, Suri­name, Guyana, and now the likes of St. Lu­cia and Grena­da, ben­e­fit­ing even more with their coun­try’s laws be­ing ad­just­ed to ac­com­mo­date play­ers born to grand­par­ents. Pepe, born in Brazil to Por­tuguese grand­par­ents, be­came a key de­fend­er for Por­tu­gal. Ivan Rak­i­tić, born in Switzer­land to Croa­t­ian grand­par­ents, chose to rep­re­sent Croa­t­ia and be­came a vi­tal part of the team, help­ing them reach the fi­nal of the 2018 World Cup. Jonathan de Guzmán, born in Cana­da to Ja­maican par­ents with Dutch grand­par­ents, rep­re­sent­ed the Nether­lands and was part of their squad dur­ing the 2014 World Cup. Mex­i­co in­clud­ed Nery Castil­lo, born in Uruguay to a Greek moth­er and Uruguayan fa­ther with Mex­i­can grand­par­ents, in their 2007 Co­pa Amer­i­ca cam­paign.

To date, Trinidad and To­ba­go does not ben­e­fit from the grand­par­ents law, and time is not on our side. Cur­rent da­ta shows there are at least five play­ers play­ing at a re­spectable lev­el with a good pedi­gree who are el­i­gi­ble for T&T through grand­parent­age but can­not ob­tain their T&T pass­ports due to the cur­rent laws. And there is an in­creas­ing num­ber of youth play­ers com­ing up through the ranks in Eu­rope.

There are sev­er­al key rea­sons why coun­tries have con­sid­ered and should con­sid­er al­low­ing their na­tion­al foot­ball teams to ac­cess play­ers born in­to third-gen­er­a­tion parent­age.

Glob­al­i­sa­tion of Tal­ent: Many play­ers are born and raised in coun­tries dif­fer­ent from their an­ces­tors but main­tain strong cul­tur­al and fa­mil­ial ties. Al­low­ing them to rep­re­sent their an­ces­tral home­land could en­rich the tal­ent pool and en­hance team per­for­mance.

In­clu­siv­i­ty and Rep­re­sen­ta­tion: This change would recog­nise and in­clude in­di­vid­u­als with deep per­son­al and fa­mil­ial con­nec­tions to a coun­try, pro­mot­ing a sense of be­long­ing and iden­ti­ty.

De­vel­op­ment of the Sport: Ex­pand­ing el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria could help coun­tries with small­er pop­u­la­tions or less de­vel­oped in­fra­struc­ture ac­cess a wider tal­ent pool, fos­ter­ing the sport’s growth glob­al­ly.

Re­flect­ing Mod­ern Re­al­i­ties: In an in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed world, the tra­di­tion­al cri­te­ria for na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion might be seen as out­dat­ed. Many peo­ple have mul­ti­cul­tur­al back­grounds, and the rules should re­flect this di­ver­si­ty.

Cul­tur­al Ex­change: Play­ers rep­re­sent­ing their an­ces­tral coun­tries can bring new skills, styles, and ex­pe­ri­ences, lead­ing to a rich­er ex­change of foot­ball tech­niques and cul­tur­al in­te­gra­tion with­in the sport. Over­all, this pol­i­cy shift could make in­ter­na­tion­al soc­cer more in­clu­sive, rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and com­pet­i­tive.

In­cor­po­rat­ing for­eign tal­ents can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove a coun­try’s chances of qual­i­fy­ing for the qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup through sev­er­al mech­a­nisms, such as in­creased skill lev­el and depth of tal­ent pool. A broad­er pool of el­i­gi­ble play­ers al­lows for more strate­gic team se­lec­tion, en­sur­ing that the best pos­si­ble team is field­ed for qual­i­fy­ing match­es.

Ex­pe­ri­ence and Tac­tics: Play­ers who have com­pet­ed in dif­fer­ent leagues and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments bring valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence and tac­ti­cal knowl­edge, which can be cru­cial in high-stakes qual­i­fy­ing match­es.

Team Syn­er­gy: Com­bin­ing lo­cal tal­ents with for­eign play­ers can cre­ate a more dy­nam­ic and ver­sa­tile team ca­pa­ble of adapt­ing to var­i­ous play­ing styles and strate­gies en­coun­tered dur­ing the qual­i­fy­ing rounds.

Psy­cho­log­i­cal Ad­van­tage: The pres­ence of high-cal­i­bre for­eign play­ers can boost team morale and con­fi­dence, which is es­sen­tial for per­form­ing well un­der the pres­sure of World Cup qual­i­fiers. The in­clu­sion of for­eign tal­ents can cre­ate healthy com­pe­ti­tion for start­ing po­si­tions, push­ing lo­cal play­ers to im­prove and per­form at their best.

Strate­gic Di­ver­si­ty: Coach­es can utilise the unique strengths of for­eign play­ers to im­ple­ment more var­ied and un­pre­dictable strate­gies, mak­ing the team hard­er to counter. Over­all, the in­te­gra­tion of for­eign tal­ents can make a na­tion­al team more ro­bust, ver­sa­tile, and com­pet­i­tive, there­by en­hanc­ing its chances of qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup.

The de­bate over home-based or home­grown play­ers hav­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing tak­en away is al­so now out­dat­ed. Home-grown play­ers born in the coun­try should see the ben­e­fits of in­clud­ing play­ers with grand­parent­age ties rather than feel­ing in­tim­i­dat­ed.

Some of these rea­sons in­clude: In­creased Com­pe­ti­tion: The in­clu­sion of tal­ent­ed play­ers can raise the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion with­in the team, push­ing all play­ers to im­prove their skills and per­for­mance. This can lead to over­all bet­ter qual­i­ty and depth in the squad. Home-grown play­ers can learn from these new ap­proach­es, en­hanc­ing their own game and tac­ti­cal un­der­stand­ing.

Team Suc­cess: The ul­ti­mate goal of any na­tion­al team is to per­form well in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions. In­clud­ing tal­ent­ed play­ers, re­gard­less of their back­ground, in­creas­es the chances of team suc­cess, which ben­e­fits every­one in­volved. Ex­po­sure and Recog­ni­tion: Suc­cess­ful teams at­tract more at­ten­tion from the me­dia, scouts, and spon­sors. This in­creased ex­po­sure can lead to bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties for all play­ers, in­clud­ing home-grown ones. 

Na­tion­al Pride: See­ing the na­tion­al team suc­ceed with a di­verse group of play­ers can en­hance a sense of na­tion­al pride and uni­ty. It shows that the coun­try is in­clu­sive and val­ues tal­ent and ded­i­ca­tion above all else.

Broad­er Per­spec­tive: Be­ing part of a mul­ti­cul­tur­al team can broad­en play­ers’ per­spec­tives, fos­ter­ing a more in­clu­sive and open-mind­ed ap­proach to life and sports. Over­all, while ini­tial com­pe­ti­tion for places may be chal­leng­ing, the long-term ben­e­fits of in­clud­ing play­ers with grand­parent­age ties can lead to a stronger, more suc­cess­ful, and more co­he­sive na­tion­al team. Home-grown play­ers should em­brace this op­por­tu­ni­ty for growth and de­vel­op­ment.

Re­search con­cludes that the World Cup has be­come more mi­gra­to­ry in terms of vol­ume and di­ver­si­ty from an im­mi­gra­tion per­spec­tive. Al­though FI­FA de­ter­mines who, un­der which con­di­tions, is el­i­gi­ble to com­pete in in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, they do not have a say in na­tion­al cit­i­zen­ship pro­ce­dures. Na­tion­al gov­ern­ments re­main the on­ly in­sti­tu­tions that can legal­ly grant cit­i­zen­ship to in­di­vid­u­als (Hall, 2012; Holmes & Storey, 2011). The mi­gra­tion his­to­ries of coun­tries, with their dif­fer­ences and, over time, changes in na­tion­al cit­i­zen­ship poli­cies, there­fore have an in­flu­ence on the vol­ume and di­ver­si­ty of for­eign-born play­ers with­in the se­lect­ed na­tion­al teams and, as a con­se­quence, at the World Cup.

Ed­i­tor’s note: Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia. He was a FI­FA me­dia of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and the 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He has trav­elled to 88 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in ports. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com