So is New Zealand is the only country which is in the headlights.No way are we the only country with these issues,begs the question why.
You'd have to wonder about Australia with 28% of residents born overseas - that's got to add up to many more thousands of overseas-born 'immigrant kids' than live in NZ.
Yea, but they probably got eligibility clearances from FIFA (e.g. Bernie Ibini).
I know there are a lot of people on this forum going through the cycle of grief, each at different stages, but the sooner we all get to 'acceptance' the better.
In Australia they'd have to get potentially hundreds to thousands of clearances from FIFA if they were going to make provision for all the kids who might be good enough to be considered for selection to high level squads of 'possibles' at various age-group stages - otherwise how could those kids ever be considered? I am not getting the impression that this is what anyone has done.
At age group level there could very well be some of this going on around the world espeacially in friendlies, but if you send a team to the world cup (or olympics) or world cup (or olympics) qualifying as we have done you would want to double and tripple check every single factor including eligibility.
The rules are unfair, but rules are rules and we have broken them. Repeatedly.
I only hope FIFA is lenient on us, and accept something like the management team falling on their swords as punishment enough, because its really the players which suffer from their higher ups incompetence. It's not just the memories and experience, its potentially careers which are made at these tournaments.