Wibblebutt,
Seen as you are in correspondence with Yann Hafner, could you get him to clarify two things I am unsure about.
1) Does Article 8 mean that when a player acquires a new nationality, he/she has to "submit a written substantiated request to the FIFA general secretariat" i.e irrespective of wether using Article 6 or 7, that change has to be approved by FIFA, or is it only required in certain conditions i.e. they have played for age group teams
2) In his chart here http://www.asser.nl/SportsLaw/Blog/post/blurred-na... is the data i.e the list of players who have changed "association", freely available?
I can't figure out where he'd get the data for that chart unless it was expected that every time someone used Article 6 or Article 7, they submitted the written request.
1) Firstly, if a player has acquired a new nationality (ie not a nationality from birth) then he needs to meet the criteria in Article 7. If he has also played a match in an official competition for another association, then he must also meet the criteria in Article 8. Art 8 is specifically for players who have already played a competitive match for one association and want to change to another association and this is when they need to submit the request to FIFA. So it is only when a player needs to change association through Article 8 that he needs to submit a request.
Interestingly, Tommy Smith doesn't meet the requirements in Article 7, but either FIFA didn't realise this or gave him a dispensation when they approved his eligiblity for NZ (he played for England at youth level so had to submit a request for change under Article 8).
2) Yann was able to get those statistcs directly from FIFA. They are not publicly available, but they do hold those records, as players that have changed association (ie met Article 8 criteria) would have all had to have submitted requests directly to FIFA. I doubt there is any records on how many players have acquired a new nationality (Article 7) as there would be many, and there is no need for them to communicate this to FIFA. It is up to the respective associations to prove eligibility through Article 7 (& 6 if applicable) if challenged.
That chart is only for players who have changed associations. ie played a match in an official competition for one association, then changed to another association through Article 8.
