Australian player Vince Grella (right) during the Socceroos pre-match training session at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. AAP Image/Luis Enrique Ascui
It’s an issue that never seems to be far away, and never fails to polarise public opinion. Our country’s multicultural past has played a huge part in the state of football in Australia today, and players claiming different nationalities through ancestry has been a direct by-product.
But while it has allowed Australian players to more readily move overseas to further their careers, it also throws up the occasional battle for allegiance.
At the 2006 World Cup, three members of Croatia’s squad could have – one day – played for Australia.
On the flip side of the coin, Australia’s side in the quarter-final loss to Italy featured a myriad of alternative nationalities including German, Croatian English, Samoan and Northern Irish.
More recently, tug-of-wars have been fought over Bradden Inman and Rhys Williams.
Inman’s flirtation with the Scottish FA drew plenty of criticism on the various online forums, while there were many who believed Williams played Wales and Australia against each other before committing to the Socceroos.
But do we really understand the full situation?
Take promising left-sided defender Ersan Gulum. Hailing from Melbourne’s Northern suburbs, Gulum plies his trade in Turkey’s Lig 2 with Adanaspor, and the more astute Australian football followers will know he was involved in the Olyroo’s warm-up games prior to the Olympics.
He missed the final cut, alongside some fellow, higher-profile Turkey-based compatriots.Gulum has not received contact from Football Federation Australia since.
Now 22, he holds Turkish nationality through his parents.
And some promising form for his club side – including selection in the league’s team of the season for 2008/09 – has alerted the Turkish FA.
The assistant of national team manager Fatih Terim has watched him in action a handful of times.
“They were very impressed… they liked the way I played,” Gulum said last week, when back in Australia during his off-season break.
“At the moment they’re still in qualifying to try and get into the World Cup, but it’s hard for them. They need to win all their games and other teams have to lose.
“I’ve been told that if they don’t make it to the World Cup, they’re going to start a fresh squad for the next Euros. I’ve been told I’ll get a call up.”
But despite admitting he was “keeping his options open,” Gulum’s allegiances still lie with Australia.
“My first priority is Australia, because they were the first country to call me,” he said.
“I was born and raised in Australia. I feel more at home in Australia than I do in Turkey. Even though I am Turkish, I still feel like an outsider – that’s how they treat you sometimes – so my first choice is playing for Australia.”
Such is the problem that presents itself to many foreign players whose local FA may know more about them than FFA.
It is a far different situation than that of Dean Bouzanis, whose promise allowed him to dip his toes in both Australian and Greek underage teams.
Gulum may not get ample opportunities to represent a country at senior level. If he is to spurn Turkey’s advances, he could be passing up his only chance to play international football.
In the cauldron of Turkish football, he could also adversely affect his club career.
Pim Verbeek has hardly been one to follow public opinion. One needs only to look at his ignoring of very public campaigns for the promotion of Nicky Carle and Australian-Uruguayan Richard Porta in the Socceroos’ set-up.
But in the recent selection of Adrian Madaschi – currently battling away in Italy’s Serie C1 – Verbeek has indicated he is keen to pursue alternative options in defence.
But if Turkey swoops while Gulum’s country of birth stalls, cue howls of derision from Australian football supporters.
But if posed with the same situation, would they really do any different?
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Ben Somerford said | July 1st 2009 @ 3:01am | Report comment
Yep interesting points Paddy. Ersan Gulum is kinda a forgotten man down playing in Turkey’s 2nd tier. But he was rated some time back as a player of some promise, so indeed it would be a shame to let him slip thru the cracks.
md said | July 1st 2009 @ 7:43am | Report comment
Paddy,
It’s maybe a fair point around the time of the Olympics, but in a World Cup year where every match will count for both the team as a unit and the individual players in terms of being in that final WC squad, let me pose the question: who do you drop from the current squad so that Gulum – a lig2 player from a second tier domestic competition, gets his chance in the green and gold?
Cheers
md
md said | July 1st 2009 @ 7:46am | Report comment
In addition to the above I suppose the only other question is: are these guys prepared to defy their clubs to play for OZ in the Asian Cup qualifiers on non-FIFA dates? If so, then yeah, lets get them in the train-on squad for the Asian Cup and give them their shot if they are better than the others available.
Cheers
md
Finno said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:07am | Report comment
Sign them up if they show 1/2 a promising career in football. Imagine Christian Vieri playing as a Socceroo?. Instead we sign Max his brother not quite as good.
Signing Harry Kewell was a great move for us. As England would have played him when he was a Leeds as he was cleary the best attacking left mid in the country at the time with Giggs and Duff. And England at the time was struggling to find a player to fit in that role.
I wonder if Bruce Djente regrets playing for the Socceroos, but not real sure if he would have got a run for the USA.
But if we are playing a dead rubber game get the young guys in get them to play and if thier career develops..Good news for Australia. Rhys Williams was clearly not over come in the Japan game and has a promising career, I was really happy to see him on the pitch.
sledgeross said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:26am | Report comment
Cmon, max Vieri was a gun
Pippinu said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:32am | Report comment
As a nation, we probably have to stop getting too excited about this issue – we’re going to win some and lose some and it will be very rare circumstances that we let an absolute gun slip through our grasp (think about the extent we went to nail Cahill when at one point he was deemed to be a Samoan national).
If this bloke gets a call up to the Turkey NT at the age of 24 or so – good luck to him, we should wish him all the best , it would be a great achievement – there would be absolutely no need for anyone to get antagonistic either to him or the FFA or Pim – the likelihood is that at best he would be a fringe player in either NT – so it really isn’t an issue that should exercise us in any way.
I will say this though – with us occasionally playing qualifiers in the Middle East on non-FIFA dates, it is a boon for us to have half a dozen blokes playing in Turkey – even as a fringe NT player, this bloke could be handy for that reason alone.
Captain Random said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:37am | Report comment
Finno -
Is there a reason for Bruce Djite to regret playing for the Socceroos? It’s just the Confed Cup final. It’s not too hard to reach one of those.
impossibleangle said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:38am | Report comment
Perhaps FFA could set up a register for o/s based Oz eligible players so that no-one ‘slips under the radar’….
Towser said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:42am | Report comment
Agree with Pippinu.
Apart from Christian Vieri I always ask the question who have we ever really lost in terms of quality. Even if we lose them did we replace them by other players equal or better than them. Well we got through to the second round of the last World Cup ,Croatia didn’t.
GeneralAshnak said | July 1st 2009 @ 9:50am | Report comment
Very reasonable article regarding this constant elephant. I personally think that Australia is going to get boned quite often when it comes to our dual nationals, I also think that we are never going to be able to cap every single possible player who may, one day, when no one else is available, possibly, could, uhh, yeah, pick him why not?, play for Australia. Do we honestly think that we should have 200 or more capped Socceroos at any one time? What would be the point? All it would do is cheapen the Green and Gold, as well as put potential future stars of the team off – after all, who wants to ride the town bike? Seriously? You know exactly where its been…