Per the rules governing the eligibility of a player to play for another country without requiring FIFA’s permission to switch, QPR Ebere Eze doesn’t need to go through the process if he decide to play for the Super Eagles, Owngoalnigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
This portal yesterday ran a story base on reports from the side of coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria Gernot Rohr who insisted that the player need his switch of allegiance to be confirmed by FIFA before he is eligible to play for Nigeria after representing England at U20 level.
The report is however not true as Eze, who is viewed as one of the best midfielders in the English Championship represented England in a friendly tournament organised by the German FA and not UEFA as posted by this portal yesterday.
Eze has played seven matches for the U20 of England, four in the 8 team Elite League competition organised by the German FA and three in friendly games. He has twice made the bench in FIFA/UEFA organised tournament but didn’t get to play.
A line from the guidelines by FIFA for players switch of allegiance stated clearly that a player will require approval to switch nationality only if he has played in an official tournament, the section is quoted below.
Principle of National Team Eligibility
Article 5.1 states: “Any person holding a permanent nationality that is not dependent on residence in a certain country is eligible to play for the representative teams of the association of that country.” The terms of this rule prevent temporary residents who are not otherwise citizens of the relevant country being considered eligible.
Article 5.1 further adds: “…any player who has already participated in a match (either in full or in part) in anofficial competition of any category or any type of football for one association may not play an international match for a representative team of another association.” The term “official competition” refers to matches played for representative teams in competitions organised by FIFA or any confederation (i.e. not friendly games).
Therefore it’s safe to say if Eze requires any form of switch before playing for Nigeria it won’t be tedious and time consuming like the case was with Ola Aina which took twelve months but it will be like that of Alex Iwobi whose switched was done swiftly because he only played for England youth team at friendly level.
