England XI of foreign players who were rumoured for a Three Lions call-up
A major issue for any foreign-born player hoping to gain eligibility to play for England one day is the Home Nations’ Agreement that the FA first entered into with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1993.
It has evolved over the years with minor updates, but the underlying rule is that foreign-born players with no ties to England cannot become naturalised and play.
Foreign-born players with an English-born parent are eligible, as was the case with Owen Hargreaves, who had only ever lived in Canada and Germany before his call-up. Alternatively, foreign-born players with five years of continuous education in England have been eligible since 2009, which covers Jamaican-born Raheem Sterling.
As long as certain other rules are met, FIFA itself allows players to switch international allegiance with relative ease if the player in questions holds a passport and/or qualifies through residency of five or more years (see: Jorginho as an example), but the four Home Nations - voluntarily - hold themselves to much stricter rules.
A lot of the time, the English media often ignores that agreement for the sake of a ‘news’ story.
Here’s a full XI of foreign-born players who have been rumoured for an England call-up at some point over the last 30 years, but only a few of whom were ever actually eligible.
GK - Manuel Almunia
Eligible or Not: Not
In 2008, there were murmurings that Arsenal stopper Manuel Almunia could be the answer to England’s goalkeeping problems. The Three Lions were struggling to identify a number one at the time and the Spaniard had recently established himself as first choice in north London.
By that time, Almunia had been living in England since 2004 and was only a year shy of qualifying under residency rules. He had never been called up by Spain and was never likely to given that Iker Casillas, Pepe Reina and Victor Valdes were all ahead of him.
The player himself was publicly open to the idea of switching and it commanded plenty of attention in the press for a couple of years. That was despite the fact that he was never actually eligible and never would have been, even had he pursued British citizenship.
Almunia had no other formal ties to England other than having lived in the country for a few years and the pesky Home Nations’ Agreement means that alone isn’t enough for England eligibility, even though FIFA rules would allow it.
DF - Rafael da Silva
Eligible or Not: Not
It was reported in late 2013 that then Manchester United full-back Rafael da Silva was ‘seriously considering’ turning his back on Brazil in order to try and play for England.
Rafael had been living in England for five years at that time after joining United alongside his twin brother in the summer of 2008, therefore meeting FIFA’s residency requirements. And while he had represented Brazil twice at senior international level already, both appearances were in friendlies, which meant he could technically still switch allegiance.
Ultimately, he is said to have decided not to try and pursue it after originally being informed of the possibility by a third party.
Despite quite a serious write up in The Times, which made no mention of the dastardly Home Nations’ Agreement, Rafael would have fallen foul of the stricter eligibility rules.
DF - Wes Morgan
Eligible or Not: Eligible (until he played for Jamaica)
In April 2016 as Leicester were nearing the most unlikely of Premier League titles and eyes were beginning to turn to Euro 2016, Harry Redknapp rather infamously described Foxes captain Wes Morgan in a newspaper column as ‘very unlucky’ not to have been called up by England.
Morgan had been one of the Premier League’s standout players that season. But what Redknapp had failed to grasp, presumably as too did the Daily Telegraph staffer who signed it off, was that Morgan was already a Jamaica international and had been for several years.
Morgan was born in Nottingham and has lived his whole life in England. But, having never played any higher than the Championship by 2013 and reasonably thinking the chance to represent the country of his birth would never come, he accepted an invitation from Jamaica instead.
When Redknapp lobbied for Morgan to get into the England squad in 2016, the Leicester skipper had played 25 times for Jamaica and had been to the Copa America and the Gold Cup.
DF - Sylvain Distin
Eligible or Not: Not
Rather like Almunia, former Manchester City, Portsmouth and Everton defender Sylvain Distin was another foreign Premier League player uncapped by his own country that fans wondered whether he could become eligible for England instead.
Distin, who has played more gams than any other foreign outfield player in Premier League history, first arrived in England in 2001 when he joined Newcastle on loan and never returned to France.
His many years of residency and no French international appearances, even at junior level – that is an important factor in cases that will be discussed later, would have allowed him to become eligible for England in usual circumstances, but the Home Nations’ Agreement prevented it.
He hung up his boots in 2016 aged 38 and never played international football in his career. But when coach Didier Deschamps announced Les Bleus’ 2014 World Cup squad without Distin, the player announced his tongue-in-cheek international retirement.
MF - Adnan Januzaj
Eligible or Not: Not
When Adnan Januzaj burst onto the scene for Manchester United as an 18-year-old in 2013 there was a bizarre flurry of rumours that he could soon be turning out for England as well, especially given that it was a season leading up to a World Cup.
But of all the country’s Januzaj was linked with, England was the most tenuous and a quick flick through the rulebook made it pretty clear that he wasn’t eligible.
Rules that didn’t permit Ryan Giggs (more later) to choose England had been changed by the time Januzaj was on the scene, allowing a foreign-born player with no other ties to the country to represent them if they had been in five years of continuous education up to the age of 18.
Januzaj had only been living in England since the age of 16 and so it was a non-starter.
MF - Mikel Arteta
Eligible or Not: Not
Mikel Arteta remarked in 2016 that he was considering taking on FIFA when his attempts to secure eligibility to represent England several years earlier were blocked by an obscure rule.
“I was half ready to go to war but in the end we decided that to challenge FIFA was going to be a big story and as well my aim was always to play for the Spanish national team. At that time I was still hopeful I might get the call [from Spain],” Arteta revealed to talkSPORT.
It came about in 2010 when Arteta was playing for Everton and had been living in England for an unbroken five years. He was among the Premier League’s better midfielders at the time, prompting then England boss Fabio Capello to have the FA look into it.
But even if the FA had been willing to break their own Home Nations’ Agreement to cap a naturalised player with no other ties to England, FIFA on this occasion wouldn’t let it happen.
Arteta had previously played for his native Spain at Under-17 level. But while that alone wouldn’t stop a player switching allegiance, in order to (theoretically) play for England he needed to have been eligible the first time he played for Spain’s junior sides, which he wasn’t. Complicated.
In recent examples of switching international allegiance, like Wilfried Zaha, Jack Grealish and Declan Rice more recently, players were eligible for both countries before playing for either at any level. In naturalised cases like Marcos Senna (Spain) or Jorginho (Italy), neither player had been capped at junior level for their homeland before switching to their adopted country.
MF - Steven Nzonzi
Eligible or Not: Not
Presumably ignoring the Arteta case in 2010 and the Home Nations’ Agreement in general, Sam Allardyce was interested in calling up French-born midfielder Steven Nzonzi during his brief spell as England manager in 2016 when approached by the player’s father.
Allardyce had previously brought Nzonzi to English football in 2009 when in charge of Blackburn and the player had six years of UK residency to his name by the time he joined Sevilla in 2015.
But like Arteta and Spain, Nzonzi had played for France at Under-21 level several years earlier. And because he wasn’t eligible for England at that time, he wasn’t eligible at all – even before taking into account the Home Nations’ Agreement.
“We did have a call, and it would have been of interest for me. We did explore it, but it was impossible, and it’s dead now,” Allardyce said at the time.
Nzonzi was then called up by France a year later anyway and ended up winning the World Cup in 2018, so he was probably quite happy in the end.
MF - Ryan Giggs
Eligible or Not: Not
For years, people bemoaned Ryan Giggs’ alleged decision to play international football for Wales instead of England. Except the reality was that it was never a decision the player made at all because he was never actually eligible for England selection.
Giggs was born in Wales to Welsh parents, nor did he have English grandparents that could have made him eligible for England. The confusion arose because the player lived in Manchester from the age of six and later represented England at schoolboy level, but that was literally because he went to school in England and had no influence over his senior eligibility at that time.
Ironically, rules changes in 2009 regarding education would have made Giggs eligible.
Giggs was probably more eligible to represent Sierra Leone than England. He has ancestry in the west African country through his father’s family, although in 2009 admitted he wasn’t sure if it was a grandparent or great-grandparent who had been born there.
FW - Leon Bailey
Eligible or Not: Not
The possibility of Jamaican-born Bayer Leverkusen winger Leon Bailey playing for England was hot gossip in the build up to the 2018 World Cup.
Having admitted a year earlier that he was refusing to play for Jamaica until the standard of the national team setup was improved, Bailey remained uncapped at senior international level and it was suddenly splashed across the UK tabloids that he was eligible for England.
That alleged eligibility was said to come from two of his grandparents holding British passports.
Throughout the saga, there was an element of politics. Bailey’s agent and stepfather Craig Butler was quoted on a number of occasions playing up the possibility of an England call-up, as well as bringing Belgium and Malta into the mix, and it was perceived by some to be more of a threat to Jamaica than it was of any serious interest from the FA.
It was established relatively early in the saga that Bailey probably wasn’t even eligible for England anyway. Two of his grandparents held British passports, but it is thought neither was born in England and FIFA’s informally nicknamed ‘Granny Rule’ requires the qualifying grandparent to be born in the country for which a player is seeking international eligibility. A passport alone is not enough.
Despite it first being reported in February 2018 that he wasn’t eligible, when Bailey was left out of England’s World Cup squad in May, Butler insisted that decision was his and the player’s.
“It's not that he didn't make it," Butler told Goal. “I didn't supply them with the info they requested yet because we are not sure we are ready to commit to a national team yet.”
Bailey eventually committed to Jamaica in 2019 and has six caps to date.
FW - Erling Haaland
Eligible or Not: Eligible (until he played for Norway)
Prior to Erling Haaland’s senior international debut for Norway in September 2019, there was a chance that England could have had the next superstar goalscorer in their ranks.
Haaland, who has scored 42 goals in 38 club appearances in 2019/20, was genuinely eligible to play international football for England because he was actually born in Leeds as a result of his family being based on English soil during his father’s Premier League career.
Yet despite being English by birth, Haaland was Norwegian in every other way and grew up in his family’s homeland, which is also where he began his football career.
With that in mind, England boss Gareth Southgate admitted only this week that it was never a real possibility to get him to choose the Three Lions, having also already been part of the Norway setup since Under-15 level.
“We’re always trying to monitor those cases, but I think in that instance he was tied up pretty early by Norway and I think also, with players like him, they’re quite clear where they want to play as well,” Southgate told The Independent.
FW - Louis Saha
Eligible or Not: Not
Former Fulham, Manchester United and Everton striker Louis Saha revealed in his cringingly named autobiography Thinking Inside the Box that he was approached about the possibility of playing for England during the managerial reign of Sven Goran Eriksson.
The Frenchman, who had never been capped by his homeland at any level and so wouldn’t have fallen foul of the red tape that stopped Arteta several years later, had lived in England since 2000 and would have gained eligibility through residence under FIFA rules by 2005.
What would have stopped Saha was, you guessed it, the Home Nations’ Agreement, which presumably Eriksson as a Swede was not well versed on considering it is unique to British shores.
Not that Saha was particularly interested anyway, commenting in his book: “Had I chosen to go ahead, I would never have been able to play for France, which in my heart of hearts did not feel right. And the idea of not playing well for England and having to put up with insults did not appeal!”
As it happened, Saha was actually called up by France in 2004, before he even fulfilled the residency criteria for England, and played 20 times for Les Bleus over eight years.
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