2006-06-20 08:37:24 · 4 answers · asked by tennessee r 2 in Sports ➔ Football ➔ FIFA World Cup (TM)
They have to be citizens to be able to play for their country. Some players are immigrants who were naturalized, so they became citizens.The Netherlands wanted Salomon Kalou from cote d'Ivoire on their team( he was already living and playing in the Netherlands) so they tried to speed up his naturalization process. Unfortunately the govenment didn't agree to this speeding up and so he was not able to play for the Dutch team.
2006-06-27 08:37:36 · answer #1 · answered by Courage 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe this is the case for most teams. However there can be exceptions. Freddy Adu is a naturalized US citizen but since he was born in Ghana they were going to allow him to play on the Ghana team. If he played for Ghana he would never be allowed to play for the US team though.
Edit: Since no one else has mentioned it. Real Madrid is a team in a Spanish League and not the Spanish National Team. So there can be members from anywhere on it. David Beckham plays for Real Madrid and for the English National team as he is an English Citizen. Team USA has quite a few players that play for the English Premier League and members of a few other teams around the world play in America's MLS (Major League Soccer).
2006-06-20 15:53:01 · answer #2 · answered by Paul G 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, I know Real Madrid has some non spanish born people on their team.
2006-06-20 16:14:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think so, unless they were naturalized.
2006-06-20 22:47:40 · answer #4 · answered by Stoic 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋