THE IRISH PASSPORT is having a moment, as they say.
Recent data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics showed there are now almost 160,000 UK citizens living in England and Wales while holding an Irish passport, an increase of almost 600% since 2011.
Brexit is the greatest single factor behind this rise, and as with any major political or social change, its ripples extend to sport, where an Irish passport is proving as much of an asset as in any other walk of life.
This was most recently seen in respect of England international Jude Bellingham, who reportedly used his Irish passport when registering with Real Madrid so as to be listed as an EU player and avoid filling one of the club’s limited non-EU player slots. Bellingham is eligible for an Irish passport as his father Mark was born in England to an Irish parent.
La Liga restricts teams to registering a maximum of five non-EU players in their squad, and teams can have no more than three non-EU players in any matchday squad. Some industry insiders are sceptical as to whether Bellingham’s use of his Irish passport to avoid non-EU quotas is one example of a widespread practice, with one agent telling The 42 they believe this is only the start of a trend, if indeed it becomes a trend at all.
That’s partly because no top European league is as strict regarding non-EU players as Spain’s. France restrict teams to a maximum of five non-EU players, while Germany have no such quota: their main rule is that clubs must have at least 12 players eligible to play for Germany in their squads.
Italian clubs are limited to a maximum of three non-EU players too, but this summer their federation granted exemptions to players from Britain and Switzerland, effectively recognising them as part of the EU. (It will be interesting to see whether this change slows the recent stream of Irish players moving to Italian clubs.)
But there are reasons beyond these quotas for UK footballers to get an Irish passport. One UK-based agent told The 42 that one of the first things they ask a young player with whom they are working is for which other countries they are eligible to play, as it helps to put them in the “shop window.” A young English-born player might not immediately be good enough to play underage football for England, but they may get the chance to play for a lower-ranked nation where competition for places is not as intense.
Post-Brexit, any EU passport is useful leverage in a young player’s contract negotiations. A player cannot sign their first professional contract with a UK club until they turn 17 while they are no longer allowed move abroad until they are 18, leaving them with a restricted choice of clubs.
That choice is further narrowed by a general agreement among English clubs not to compete among each other for the signing of younger teenagers. (There are exceptions to this, of course: one source told The 42 that the agreement exists to avoid bad blood between clubs, but it is not so stringent that clubs would compete for the signing of an extremely talented player.) In these situations, players with an EU passport can be signed to European clubs from 16 and, at the very least, drive a harder bargain.
The twin facts of modern demographics and these incentives mean the UK player pool is filled with players who have dual eligibility at international level. Dave Reddin, the former head of team strategy and performance at England’s FA, revealed a remarkable stat in a 2019 interview on the Training Ground Guru podcast: at the time, 88% of the players across all of England’s development teams were eligible to play for at least one other country.
Reddin explained that the FA have developed their scouting systems and player insight programmes partly in response to these changes. The days of their allowing English-eligible players to easily slip through their grasp are long over and, to that end Gary Brazil left his role as the head of Nottingham Forest’s academy earlier this year to take a new job as the head of recruitment and retention at the FA. His job is to scout players at all age groups and also ensure England don’t lose any dual-eligibility players to anyone else.
In recent years, England have tied down players with an alacrity Ireland have not displayed. One example: while Martin O’Neill elected not to tie down Declan Rice by playing him in any of Ireland’s competitive games towards the end of 2017, Gareth Southgate introduced West Brom’s Nathaniel Chalobah for the final minute of a Nations League game against Spain in 2018, securing a player also eligible to play for Sierra Leone.
Where recruitment of dual-eligible players was the rock upon which Ireland built their unprecedented success under Jack Charlton, a failure of retention is the signature fact of Ireland’s years of mediocrity since Euro 2016.
There have been only nine players sold for a single transfer fee of at least £100 million in the history of the sport, and only three countries have had more than one of them in their youth systems: Brazil (Neymar and Philippe Coutinho), France (Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe) and…Ireland.
Rice and Jack Grealish are England’s greatest recruitment successes of recent years, but not even they managed to retain the players they want, the most obvious being Jamal Musiala, now a star of the German national team.
That is not to suggest the FAI are blind to the benefits of dual-eligible players, or cannot compete for their services. Belfast-born Sean Moore played for Northern Ireland at the non-competitive U18 level, but has represented the Republic of Ireland at U19 level and the FAI expect him to commit to them. Last year, Mark Sykes became the first Belfast-born senior Irish international in 76 years, Derry City’s Michael Duffy has also transferred from the IFA to the FAI, while Mikey Johnston (Scotland) and CJ Hamilton (England) are recent transfers capped by Stephen Kenny.
Meanwhile, Sinead Farrelly, Marissa Sheva (both USA), Aoife Mannion (England), and Deborah-Anne De la Harpe (Australia) were all capped by Vera Pauw in advance of the women’s World Cup.
More broadly, the FAI work with data company Analytics FC to scout Irish-eligible players across the world, one of their means of competing in a brutally competitive landscape.
Many dual-eligible players choose their international teams with their heart, and hence don’t deserve the scepticism with which they are treated by Irish fans still scarred by the Rice and Grealish experiences. But it is also a fact of life that Ireland are no less susceptible to being treated as a shop window than any other country, and are more vulnerable than most to England’s gravitational pull.
“I think all you can do as a head coach is take the player’s word for it”, says Irish U21 manager Jim Crawford on his approach to dual-eligible players.
“I have seen it happen loads of times: a player says they want to declare for the Republic, they end up playing exceptionally well with the Republic, and then they go and have a purple patch with their club, and that’s the problem with dual nationalities.
“You might have a bigger club that become interested then, and you have a lot of moving parts in terms of agents, and sometimes clubs can sometimes influence players to play with a certain country.”
It is simply much more lucrative for a player – and therefore his representatives – to play international football for England. To illustrate that fact: we know of one Irish underage player who was offered a five-figure sum by a boot manufacturer at the age of 16 if he agreed to declare for England on the spot. (The player declined, as they only wanted to play with Ireland.)
Meanwhile, new rules in English football now further incentivise dual-eligible players to hedge their bets and stick with England. The rules allow English clubs sign a select number of “wildcard” players from abroad who do not satisfy the post-Brexit points-based immigration requirement, so long as the club gives enough playing time to English-eligible players. This definition includes players who can play for England but are involved in the underage teams of another national team, meaning players are now further incentivised to keeping all international options open.
Liverpool-born striker Tom Cannon is one of these players. He was capped at U21 level by Ireland earlier this year, but then declined another call-up in June to take time to consider his allegiances. The FAI were initially surprised, as they believed Cannon was genuine in his desire to play for Ireland. A meeting between the player’s agent and Stephen Kenny had not taken place ahead of this month’s international window, as Cannon completed a deadline day move to Leicester.
“I am not going to name names, but I have different cases where you weigh things up and you say, ‘This particular player is only using this as a platform to go somewhere else’”, says Crawford, speaking generally on the topic and not in direct reference to Cannon or anyone else.
“It is up to the coach’s instinct, whatever age group it is. You do have players on the other side who just want to put on that green jersey and nothing else interests them. They are obviously the ones we want to keep hold of, as long as they are good enough to play at that level.”
In the modern game, things are not always that clear-cut.
