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?
ish
Guest
Its simply to do with immigration. Soccer in australia at one time was played mainly by immigrants and of course many of them would then be dual ciitizens. Players like viduka and kewell were good enough to play for their other nations but chose australia. In a way that shows how much growing in a country means to a player. For instance germany is a good example. It has alot of turkish immigrants and many of the 2nd generation are more german then turkish. Thats why you have players like mesut ozil playing for germany over turkey. Of course there are players that go the other way, american born rossi plays for italy through his parents. Dual Citizenship has its advantages, players who have dual citizenship can find it easier to go play abroad, this was very important back when the a-league hadnt started. The advantages are they generally have more exposure to scouts and the standard of football is higher. The pay rate is also usually better then in australia as well.
Davidde Corran
Roar Guru
Albert, great little article that, I'm glad I caught it so thanks.
Albert Ross
Guest
A lot of national teams are becoming very cosmopolitan - including Germany's as this NYT article points out: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/sports/soccer/01iht-SOCCER.html?hpw
Albert Ross
Guest
The Republic of Ireland NT has made its footballing reputation by selecting players whose links wit' the ould sod were tenuous in the extreme. One such was the itinerant journeyman Terry Mancini (Watford, Port Elizabeth City, Leyton Orient, Queens Park Rangers, Arsenal, Aldershot, Los Angeles Aztecs and Barnet) who, when lined up for the national anthems prior to his first international game at age 30 against Poland at Lansdowne Road, asked a team mate, "Which one's ours?".
dasilva
Roar Guru
In terms of players loss, I would say Joe Simunic is the only really major loss. He is a regular bundesliga player and he would be a guarantee starter in the australian side. I would think he would think that if he chose to play for Australia we would have a Moore/Simunic partnership - leading to Simunic-Neill partnership over the last decade. Other minor loss would be Didulica and seric who would have been a reasonable back up for Schwarzer and chipperfield respectively and they would have add depth to the side.
FIsher Price
Guest
Kewell, Giggs, Duff... Duff? Pah. I'll take Overmars.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Finno We should employ someone in a full time position just to watch over those four sons for the next 20 years!!!
Finno
Guest
Pippinu your are probably right, Im sure the FFA have the scouts and feelers out for every body who is able to play. But hows this Gabriel Batistuta sons Thiago, Lucas, Joaquín, Shamel are all able to play for Australia, Italy and Argentina.
Towser
Guest
Pippinu Of the top of my head I've no memory of Christian Vieri ever wanting to play for any other country except Italy. As you say at that time why would he want to play for Australia even if given a choice. He wasnt born here anyway & left I think when he was 14. I remember his father Roberto(I think) playing for Marconi.
dasilva
Roar Guru
I don't have any problems with Gulum playing for Turkey. Unlike many other players who choose to play in their ancestral home, at least he actually lived in his country of origin and have a fair idea what the country is like.
clayton
Guest
its nice to see these players NOT painted as demons, mercenaries or traitors for a change. they are normal everyday aussies who love oz, and also love their ancestral home. unless you are Aboriginal, you got ties somewhere else. but all the FA can do is choose the best possible team and ignore the dual nationality ramifications. tieing up players for the sake of tieing up players isn`t good for anyone. there are guys out there who aren`t good enough to play for australia who could have excellent international careers with a weaker country.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Towser In Vieri's case (the better one), was there ever a realistic chance that he would have opted to play for Australia? (I don't know his exact history, but having been involved with the Serie A from a youngish age, and given his family history, it seems hard to believe that anyone in those circumstances wouldn't elect to play for Italy if they are wanted by Italy).
GeneralAshnak
Roar Pro
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...
Towser
Guest
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.
impossibleangle
Guest
Perhaps FFA could set up a register for o/s based Oz eligible players so that no-one 'slips under the radar'....
Captain Random
Roar Rookie
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. ;)
Pippinu
Roar Guru
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.
sledgeross
Guest
Cmon, max Vieri was a gun ;)
Finno
Guest
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.
md
Guest
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