Lunch & Learn: Blurred nationalities: who gets to play for whom at the 2014 FIFA World Cup?

“Blurred nationalities: who gets to play for whom at the 2014 FIFA World Cup?”

A critical analysis of the current FIFA Regulations on national team representation

Interest in the 2014 FIFA World Cup is essentially based upon the symbolic confrontation of nation-states via their football teams. Thus, the composition of and the rules pertaining to such representative teams is key to various stakeholders, namely FIFA, the media and fans, either in terms of revenue, media coverage or identification.

This Lunch & Learn will discuss the salient legal issues arising under the current FIFA Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (articles 5-8). The recent controversies surrounding the eligibility of the Spanish-Brazilian player Diego Costa or the German-Cameroonian players Joël Matip and Eric-Maxim Choup-Moting will be used. The presentation will address among other issues the use of nationality as an eligibility criterion in football, the regime of the election of a representative team and the process to change national affiliation.

Yann Hafner is a PhD student and a Research & Teaching assistant at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he is affiliated to the Chair of Sports Law. The title of his thesis is "The concept of sporting nationality: Sources, Current situation and Prospects".

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