Eligibility plan being backed by Welsh FA

September 2, 2009

The Welsh FA is backing proposed new plans to change the eligibility criteria for players. The current rules mean that you must either be born in the country or your parents or grandparents were born in the country but the new proposals would allow players that have been in compulsory education for at least 5 years to play for the country they were educated in.

If this rule was already in place t would have meant that Michael Owen wuld have been eligible to play for Wales as the Manchester United star was raised and educated in Hawarden in north Wales, but could not represent Wales as he was born to English parents in Chester, the nearest maternity hospital.

Equally, if the new rule had previously been implemented former Wales captain and Owen’s United team-mate Ryan Giggs could have opted to play for England.

Cardiff-born winger Giggs has lived in the Manchester area since the age of six and even captained England’s schoolboys at Wembley, but was ineligible to represent England’s senior teams.

In a BBC interview in 2001, he said: “I’m Welsh through and through - I was born in Wales, I grew up in Wales and my family are Welsh.

“I only played for England Schoolboys because I went to an English school.”

The following year, he added: “It still bugs me when people ask if I wished I’d played for England - I’m Welsh, end of story.

“I’d rather go through my career without qualifying for a major championship than play for a country where I wasn’t born or which my parents didn’t have anything to do with.”

The Scottish Football Association is leading the proposal for British players to be able to represent their chosen country if they have spent five years of compulsory education there before the age of 16.

The Irish Football Association, which represents Northern Ireland, and the Welsh FA have given their backing to the plan.

The Football Association is now considering the proposed eligibility criteria change and the plan will have to be ratified by world football’s governing body Fifa before it becomes official.

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