FIFA Considers Allowing Players Switch Senior National Teams

Rabat – Countries like Morocco will certainly be pleased if the international governing football body FIFA implements the changes some of its members request regarding players with more than one nationality.

As BBC Sport reported, FIFA is considering changing nationality rules to allow players, who played for a senior national team, switch to another.

The request was made by Cape Verde and according to the British media outlet the world football organization is studying the proposal.

Current regulations prohibits players who represented one country in an official game at the senior level from changing their teams.

“There are nationality issues that pop up all over the world – in Africa, and there are issues in Asia and Concacaf “, said Victor Montagliani, the head of FIFA’s stakeholders committee.

“So it’s a good time to have a look at this and see if there are solutions without hurting the integrity of the game “, he added.

Players wishing to represent a team other than that they played for at a certain period of their junior career, can only do so before moving to the senior level or they are allowed to play one friendly game with a senior team before they can make up their minds.

In recent years, several players who have represented the Moroccan national team previously played at the junior level for European countries such as France, Belgium, Holland and Italy.

Players like Younes Belhenda, Nordin Amrabat, Amine Harit and others chose to represent Morocco at the senior level after they were part of the French and Dutch junior national football teams.

Moroccan-Belgian winger Nacer Chadli played one friendly with Morocco against Ireland in 2010 before switching to Belgium.

Other players such the Spanish Moroccan Munir El Hadadi and the Dutch Moroccan Anwar El Ghazi chose their European countries over Morocco but failed to secure a place among the line ups of the Spanish and Dutch teams.

Morocco is hoping that FIFA rules will be relaxed to allow the Atals Lions attract players such as El Hadadi.