BrisbaneRhino wrote:
Place of birth is about a ridiculous way to measure nationality. Is Cliff Richard an Indian? IIRC Garry Clark (ex KR) was born somewhere like Malta yet played for GB with no fuss, and I'm sure he wasn't the only player that was born somewhere other than GB who has played for them. Not to mention other sports...
All the other arguments are rubbish too. "I'm OK with parentage but not residence". Really? So all immigrants who may have been born outside the UK but arrived here aged 2, can only ever play for the country their parents moved from? Despite the fact they have been raised in the UK, and may not have even visited the old one? Wow, join hands with the German far right if you will in their attitude towards Turks.
Basically all these arguments (and every combination of them) are hypocracy dressed up as logic, whereby the whinger basically wants the rules for international elgibility on sport to simply accord with their individual views on what nationality is. Some of this is blatantly in disregard of international norms outside of sport (where residence clearly invokes citizenship in many cases), or the rules which a range of sporting bodies other than RL also use.
What's sad is that so many RL fans seem to get upset with these rules. The silence from fans of other sports is deafening.
A lovely little essay, but one that spectacularly misses the point.
Chase has represented New Zealand Maori and The Exiles against England; during the Exiles campaign a few short months ago, he openly said that he hoped his inclusion in that team would increase his chances of being selected for New Zealand, that being his boyhood dream and all.
Fast forward 4 months, pausing only for a court case in which he was convicted of GBH in his native land and during which time he failed to be selected for New Zealand and hey presto - he's as English as can be.
So - the legal position around residency or even the moral position around citizenship are not really the issues here; the reason Chase's selection has caused such consternation is because it looks and feels like a blatantly cynical attempt to avoid deportation by representing the national side.
(And also because he plays for Cas of course, which I'm sure Fully, Georgie, Gronk and bigalf will be along to point out in short order.)
