91Èȱ¬

I have no probelm with Aldama she is married to a British man and has lived in the UK for ten years. Again no probelm also with Procter Anguilla is not a member of the IOC this is the only way for her to get to the Olympics.

More of a probelm with Offli-Porter who in my way of thinking has only jumped to the British ship because she is not good enough to repesent the USA. The likes of Michael Bingham also fall in that category. Also Germaine Mason in the High Jump competed first for Jamacia and won a silver medal "for GB".

The system to my way of thinking is open to abuse, back to Aldama, her best years are behind her so I don't think she will medal.

Mo Farah, anyone? Born in Somalia, lives in the USA. But we all know that Mo is British in the same way that we know Andrew Strauss is not South African.

The truth is that the concept of having a nationality is blurry these days, but as a Brit, I for one will be cheering on Aldama, with her British husband, child, residence, and pride and desire to compete for Britain.

Does she really divide opinion in the way the title of this Blog suggests?

What's even more ridiculous is that you can't spell weeping.

Surely we should be celebrating these facts? the UK is slowly breaking the back of the bigotry of the past and showing we welcome all comers. And to expect someone to completely deny thier heritage and family history is not fair.

And yet another non-story from Mr Bond. Lazy journalism and an attempt to create a story from nothing.

It's been happening for years and every country does it. USA athletics has Bernard Lagat, the Aussie cricket team had Andrew Symmonds, the All Blacks have always picked up Samoan and Fijian players. As you've said it's hardly an English issue and it's not going to ever be changing so why bother discuss it.

It seems this is just another attempt by you to focus on the negative of an issue, just look at your list of blogs at the bottom of this page; "UK athletes struggling to meet high expectations", "World Championships struggle in bid for centre stage", "Why Man Utd Asian float could backfire on Glazers", "London passess early test but big challenges to come". And now this one as well. Talk about Mr Doom and Gloom, you make Victor Meldrew look like a ray of sunshine!

Also you may want to get someone to look at the link on the front page of the Sport website;

Best of British?
Long jumper Yamile Aldama competes for a third nation in the World Championships

Last time I checked Aldama was competing in the triple jump. Seems a bit rich to question the issue of changing nationalities when you can't even get the event right that they're competing in. Maybe it's time to start a blog where we list all the examples of lazy journalism and mistakes from this website and see how much you guys enjoy having your errors and decisions highlighted in this way.

Strauss moved to England when he was 6, I don't think we can really call him South African.

No mention of the rather famous John Barnes, born in Kingston, Jamaica, capped 79 times for England, won rather a lot with Liverpool.

Just to pull you up about the rugby and cricketers David. The actual number of foreign born rugby players is actually more than five. You left out Armitage, Shaw and Simpson. But Matt Stevens has an English mother. Shaw has English parents and only took up rugby at 16 when came to finish his education in England. Armitage, Hartley, Corisbiero, Tuilagi, Simpson all came here at a young age or in their early teens. And are all products of the English rugby system. So they're not quite the same as say Hape who came here as an adult and even played Rugby (league in his case) for his native NZ.

As for the cricketers. Strauss came here at the age of six and has an English parent. Prior came here at the age of 11. Both are products of English youth cricket. Pietersen and Kiesewetter have an English parent. As for Trott, as much as I think he's brilliant, he qualified as a adult and has no real connection to England if he wasn't a cricketer.

Before anyone goes on about Mo Farah. He came here as a refugee. It was a teacher at his school in the UK that persuaded him to take up Athletics as an alternative to trouble he used to get into as a teenager. He came through the UK system and now runs for the country he acknowledges (literally) saved his life. Yes, he trains in the US. But so do many UK athletes and many others used to train in Australia.

Arteta is NOT eligible for England because FIFA Statutes stipulate he would have needed to have held a British passport at the time when he represented Spain at the U16 European Championships and in addition he would have required five years of education in Britain before turning 18.
This was widely reported almost exactly 1-year ago, including on the bbc website here:

Oh and the 5-years of education in Britain rule (above) is not legally binding, but is a gentleman's agreement made by the home nations, but it still exists and is adhered to (so far).

We've had foreign born sports men and women competing for England and UK for years. Most of them came through our various sports academies, youth systems, club teams etc because they grew up here.

For me Saladana isn't really a plastic Brit as Cuba had kicked her out of their team. She lives and works here. But the question over her is that she chose to compete for Sudan in 2003. And the motivation to do so. She only chose to do so because her eligibility for the GB team came through in Autumn 2004. A few months after the Athens olympics. So she switched teams to make the olympics. Some people would argue that she should've waited and competed for the GB if that what she really wanted to do. Not take a flag of convenience for Sudan (she still continued to live and train in the UK) to make the olympics.

@ 7 - John Barnes is a sensitive subject. The main opposition to him playing for England at the time of his debut wasn't that he born in Jamaica and moved here at the age of 12, but his skin colour. When Viv Anderson (born in Nottinghamshire) made his England debut there was a lot of fuss from people about England turning into an non-white team and all sorts of xenophobic nonsense. Thankfully we've moved on from that.

The quality of 91Èȱ¬ journalism, particularly sports journalism, really has dropped in the last few years. Almost every story involving someone losing in an event features the headline "XXXXX crashes out of YYYYYY" because the journos lack the imagination to find a different verb for 'exits'; journalists routinely use the expression "begs the question" entirely wrongly (it does not mean "prompts the question"), see almost any McNulty article for this particular faux pas; and then there are articles like this that attempt to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Couple this with some county cricket matches being commentated on *separately* by both local radio and TMS and we can easily see why the 91Èȱ¬ needs such an extortionate licence fee.

I have no doubt this comment will be removed as being "off topic", but this article is symptomatic of the degeneration I'm describing.

From the penultimate paragraph of the Blog:

"Clearly many of you will feel something special in sport is being lost in the rush to recruit foreigners into British sports teams."

The comments so far seems to suggest that NOBODY thinks that something special is being lost, never mind "clearly many".

@yottskry - I second that.

Add in "X set to do something", "Y poised for something" - WTF, has it happened or not? Is it news?

Also, the "Rooney backs Terry to bounce back" stuff drives me mental... as if football news wasn't dull enough already.

Peace out

Lazy journalism aside, why can't they get it into their skulls that it's NOT the Union Jack, but the Union Flag? It's only a jack when flown from the foremast of a vessel.

@Andyburn - Indeed. I've long since given up trying to point this out.

Does anyone know if Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps have got any British lineage??

May I remind you there are two types of rugby played in Britain. You may not be aware of this, because you probably live in a region in which the only coverage you get from the 91Èȱ¬ is at 3 in the morning. If you are going to refer to one of the rugby sports in an article, please state which one you're referring to.

There are quite a few mistakes in this blog as pointed out above. If you want to make a point ot of 'foreigners' playing for England/Britain/whoever at least get your facts correct as you come out looking amateurish. Speak to some of your colleagues in rugby, cricket and football or else we'll all be waiting for Arteta to make his debut for England in the same sort of way Tony Cascarino did for Ireland.

Yawn - nationality has never been clear cut. Albert Trott played test cricket for both Australia and England over 100 years ago. Today his (alleged) relative, Jonathan Trott plays for England but was born in South Africa. There are a million examples.

I am English, my wife is American. Our children have dual nationality. They have a perfect right to represent either of those nations.

In this country, we always think it is us who only do this but it goes on everywhere. Even the 1987 All Blacks had an English/Irishman in the side, John Gallagher! He is an All Black legend despite spending virtually his entire life in England.

Jambalaya wrote:

The comments so far seems to suggest that NOBODY thinks that something special is being lost, never mind "clearly many"

I for one do think so and suspect that many who don't post on blogs feel the same way. Flags of convenience.

What's going on, Britain's "leaders" resorting to dishonorable tactics again with the public happy to go along with it unfussed by the negative image of their country? Yaawn



.

magicDarkshadow: Trott had a British passport before he came to the UK, that's how he qualified to play for Warwickshire in 2003.

I too am concerned with this issue.

There will always be some grey areas eg an athlete with one british parent but who has never lived or been educated in this country; someone who comes over at aged 18 but has gone through the (say) Australian sports and education system etc.....

But clearly Hape, Trott, Offli-Porter are not British and should not be representing England/GB.

@25 - Thanks for letting me know. I also just got chastised by a work colleague for saying it in the office. So fair play to Trott.

@21 - Cascarino is an interesting one. Cascarino's mother was adopted by an Irish couple. Something that Cascarino wasn't aware of until well after he was first capped by the Republic. But he still qualified because under Irish law, adopted children are recognised as their adoptive parents children. So in Cascarino's case according to Irish law he is the child of Irish grandparents and therefore can apply for an Irish passport. Making him eligible.

24: Dishonorable how exactly? No rules have been broken have they?

28: Didn't realise he qualified in the end to be honest just knew about his autobiography and him admitting he had misled the authorities slightly. Oh well I'm no better than David Bond with my facts now then, at least I don't get paid. On a complete side note after reading up on Cascarino I can't believe what he said about the recent Arsenal match!

International sport may be about representing a country but its a results business, most British sports teams have at some time utilized a player who is qualified to play for them even though they were not born and or raised in this country. Likewise from the Athlete (or sports person's) perspective if there is better funding, training equipment, quality of life or just an opportunity to fulfill a life long dream that you have been working towards then who could honestly say no!

Moreover I suggest almost every country that competes internationally does it as well as I can name Australian, South African and Kiwi Rugby and Cricket internationals that weren't born there. It's a fact of sport and has been for a very long time. It's not something that is every going to change and I for one don't really care who represents my country as long as they put absolutely everything into they can.

The question of nationality always involves the All Blacks at some stage or another.

Regarding number 5s comment, prior to the 1980s it was rare to see a non-Maori Polynesian in the All Blacks and the only Fijian I can recall before then was Bernie Fraser ( whose ancestry was our usual mix including Irish and Scottish ). The reason we see more brown faces is due to the fact that the Pacific Island migration for work really took off in the 1970s and 1980s and the kids of those immigrants ( some of the kids also having travelled at 5 - 6 years of age ) are now becoming eligible for selection by their country. Their country! As for Fiji, the amount of Fijian migration increased following the military coup of 1987. It's called migration - I should know, my parents were migrants to NZ and I have ended up here ( and very nice it is too ).

If you are talking about rent a medals then Qatar may have a bit more to answer for on that front.

#32, yes Qatar are another example of a country where people compete for them after moving there. My point was plenty of people do it in plenty of sports. You seem a bit defensive about the mention of Fiji and the All Blacks, so Sitiveni Sivivatu and Joe Rokocoko weren't both born in Fiji? I'm not disputing that they were brought up in New Zealand I was just stating that these sort of instances happen in many countries and in many sports, the All Blacks being one example the same as the England cricket team. The fact is that it's happened for years and will carry on happening. The governing bodies put rules in place that they think are right and these people follow them, they haven't done anything wrong so where's the story?

Others: Linford Christie, Eric Young, Terry Butcher, Robert Earnshaw, Greg Rusedski, Lennox Lewis, Herbie Hide.
Many many British sportsmen have emigrated to Britain. Its no bad thing as long as they do not expect a free ride!