The agenda for the 70th FIFA Congress, to be held online from Zurich (Switzerland) on Friday, September 18, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. (CET), has been confirmed on August 19. It includes the adoption of a proposed amendment to the FIFA statutes, to relax the sports nationality laws of dual-national players. A strategic decision of great importance for national football. Explanations.
A proposal tabled during the last FIFA Council last June and to be adopted at this next Congress of the body chaired by Gianni Infantino, concerns the conditions of eligibility of players for the national team.
The new rule would allow players to change sporting nationality if they played a maximum of three times for a national A team, including official matches, before turning 21, and at least three years earlier.
This rule, if adopted, could allow Munir El Haddadi, who chose Spain in 2014 and wore the La Roja jersey during an official match when he was barely 18 years old, to play for the Lions de l ‘Atlas, a desire he hasn’t stopped expressing for almost three years.
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) seized FIFA to allow El Haddadi to wear the national jersey during the 2018 World Cup, but the request was rejected.
Munir El Haddadi is not the only one concerned. Anwar El Ghazi, Moroccan-Dutch player for Aston Villa, had opted in 2015 for the selection of the Netherlands following a long standoff between the Federation of Oranjes and the FRMF and could always find his Dutch friends like Hakim Ziyech, Oussama El Idrissi or Sofiane Amrabat.
The adoption of this amendment will also have an impact on the battle which constantly opposes the Moroccan Federation to the European Federations to convince bi-national players to choose the country of origin sportingly, since the fact of aligning a player during an official match will no longer be a decisive process to definitively afford the player’s services. The latter, before his 21 years, will have the right to play up to three games before making a final decision.
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