Players eligible for Ireland

As regards Danny's point on Barton: 1.  Danny relies heavily on the fact that FIFA don't do an in-depth look into players before they play - he gave the example of Kinsella and another underage player.  One imagines that the same low level of rigour would have applied to Barton and so clearance in itself does not conclusively determine eligibility (how could it if, as Danny says, the other two boys were subsequently found to be ineligible?).

Absolutely not; I'm not sure why one would imagine any such thing. You're completely misreading what I've said and putting a rather bizarre and unintended spin on it. Whether it's intentional or not, I don't know. I'd like to think not, but, one way or another, I perceive a substantial degree of denialism in your post, whatever the reason for it may be. 

I have distinguished very clearly between competitive under-age football (which is tightly regulated and monitored by FIFA because it is official competition with a strict governing set of regulations) and non-competitive under-age football (which is pretty much left up to the associations to pursue as they desire, naturally because it is not organised under the auspices of FIFA). I'm not sure how you could have missed that distinction so as to misrepresent me so comprehensively. It's a very crucial distinction as far any attempt to draw some sort of comparison between the (very different) cases of the Everton two (Kinsella and Wallace) and Barton is concerned.

Kinsella and Wallace played in a non-competitive under-age friendly game organised by the FAI. The FAI were able to get away with suffering nothing more serious than embarrassment on account of the cock-up because FIFA's eligibility regulations obviously don't apply at all to such fixtures, so proof of eligibility is not required. It's not a case of FIFA being careless, lax or lazy over this realm; it's simply the case that FIFA's regulations do not apply over these games, neither in practice nor in theory. FIFA do not administer these games and have no interest in regulating these games because they essentially have nothing to do with such fixtures. 

Therefore, the two Everton players (who apparently misled the FAI based on a misunderstanding over their Irish ancestry) didn't receive any clearance from FIFA; it wasn't necessary as they weren't playing in FIFA competition. The two would never have gotten anywhere near a competitive squad for FIFA competition, however. FIFA simply wouldn't have allowed it as the eligibility regulations strictly apply to official competition. The FAI presumably realised these two players' ineligibility when they decided to seek documentary proof of eligibility (beyond the players' original claims of eligibility because they possessed Irish roots) with the possible intention of having the two Evertonians available for competitive selection. For the sake of argument, if what you claim is true and FIFA don't apply regulatory rigour to under-age competition, then it wouldn't have mattered that the two Evertonians weren't actually eligible and the FAI could have simply continued selecting them for competitive games and gotten away with it.

Barton represented us competitively at under-age level. His clearance to play is evidence of his eligibility. Thus, the eligibility regulation concerned - article 7 - was applied to him; he passed the test, as proven by his repeated presence on the field. If he was ineligible, then the FAI would have been guilty of fielding an ineligible player in official competition on four separate occasions, but there has been absolutely no suggestion of this ever. To suggest the FAI were fielding an ineligible player and never pulled up on it is conspiracy theory stuff with no evidential basis whatsoever. To assume that this might be the case instead of accepting the only plausible scenario in reality - that Barton was indeed fully eligible to represent the FAI at all levels, because he did so competitively on four occasions without any issue - is just warped denialism.

2.  Barton started playing for ROI in the immediate aftermath of Kearns, which, as I said already , the FAI may not have been aware of this wrinkle in the rules.  That's when his caps came in a friendly and at the outset of the qualifiers.  He also got capped at the end of the qualifiers, but only after Ireland were already out unfortunately.

What are you suggesting? That the FAI may have consciously fielded an ineligible player (or a player over whose eligibility they had doubts) in official under-age competition because the team were already out of qualification reckoning for the European Under-21 Championships by the time the game came round. If that is indeed what you're intimating, that's just ludicrous. It seems like a bizarre twisting of the facts to try and fit them around your conspiracy narrative. Why on earth would the FAI ever attempt to take such a risk (if it would even have been practically possible anyway)?

What does the Kearns case have to do with Barton's eligibility? It's a red herring. Barton first played competitively for our under-21s on the 1st of September 2011. The Kearns judgment was published nearly a full year before that on the 27th of September 2010, so it's not really true to say Barton started playing for us in the "immediate aftermath" of the Kearns judgment. I'm not sure what the relevance of this is anyway.

Are you suggesting that the FAI might have learned from the Kearns judgment that Barton was not actually eligible to play for Ireland or something? I'm not sure why that would be so, but, for the sake of argument, if it were so, they had over 11 months to digest the judgment before Barton made his competitive under-age debut for Ireland; surely plenty of time for this hypothetical realisation to dawn upon them. 

Not that it matters anyway what the FAI's understanding might have been because eligibility for these competitions is ultimately governed by FIFA who apply the same eligibility regulations as apply to senior competition. Talking about Kearns and possible FAI ignorance of the rules are just red herrings because FIFA would have been making sure that the rules were being adhered to regardless.

You just seem to be obfuscating the matter for some reason. You appear to be intentionally ignoring or omitting the fact that it is not merely the FAI who self-monitor eligibility for official competition. FIFA regulate and monitor these games too. There is simply no way the FAI fielded an ineligible player on four occasions in official competition and got away with it. That simply doesn't happen.

As regards Bruce, yes he was on the bench for competitive games.  They were in 2007.  That was more than three years prior to the Kearns decision where the distinction between "nationality at birth" and "acquisition of nationality" was highlighted as being so key to eligibility.

So what if those games were three years before Kearns? What does Kearns have to do with it? Are you suggesting FIFA weren't applying their own eligibility criteria to senior international football games until after the Kearns case?  

And where did the Kearns judgment highlight that this distinction was "key to eligibility" and what does that even mean anyway? Both birth nationality and acquired nationality are legitimate forms of eligibility so long as the additional relevant criteria in the regulations are satisfied. The CAS panel who oversaw the Kearns case adjudicated upon articles 5 and 6 (or what were then articles 15 and 16); not article 7 (or what was then article 17).

It is odd that no player with this link has been included since or - as far as I know - approached.  And it would not seem to be for a lack of good players, as there are plenty who qualify through such a link who could have been capped at underage or senior level.

 

It's not odd at all. It's hardly been a prolific "conveyor belt" for us over the years. Who are the "plenty" to whom you refer? You might get the odd player here or there qualifying for us via this route and actually being good enough. As for not knowing whether or not a player has been approached, that's hardly a surprise either as most approaches probably aren't reported as they're not particularly newsworthy. Perhaps some potential players with northern grandparentage were approached by the FAI and said they weren't interested because their northern heritage happened to be unionist rather than nationalist or republican; who knows?

Also, for what it's worth, John Delaney claimed back in 2011 that the FAI wait for northern-born players to make their interest known to the association rather than aggressively pursuing such players. I know this was certainly the case with Shane Duffy; Sean McCaffrey (former under-age manager) refused to get in touch with Duffy until Duffy made his intention to switch known to the FAI. The FAI may well employ a similar practice with Irish nationals who qualify through a northern grandparent.

Just another thing on the FIFA switch-of-association process, as it was suggested up-thread that Barton would not have had time to have a switch processed between his last game for the IFA and his first game for the FAI; it can take three months in some cases or it could take up to six months in some cases (as was the case with Grealish). 

In saying that, I cannot confirm whether or not Barton did undergo a formal switch as he hadn't represented NI competitively. I'm just saying it's something that cannot be ruled out (which you were trying to do up-thread) based on the known time-frame; he played for NI in a senior friendly against Morocco on the 17th of November, 2010, but played his first competitive game for the Ireland under-21s against Hungary on the 1st of September, 2011 (not the 15th of March, 2011, wherever you got that date from?), so, unless I'm mistaken, there'd have been nine and a half months there to allow FIFA to process any switch if necessary. (A formal switch isn't necessary to play in under-age friendly games as they are not administered by FIFA.)

I also realised since posting previous comments that a lot of my links to supporting information weren't working; I've since fixed them up so all should now be working.