Andrew Durante (Melbourne Victory | A-Leagues)

Any likelihood that FIFA could come up with some BS like "If NZF waited for us to confirm, he would have been eligible as he met all the criteria, but because NZF went against us we are now ruling him out indefinitely just to be dicks"

No.

It's clearly a mix-up with "Andrew Duran" who was a Seattle Sounders defender until they waived him to make room for another player in April this year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Duran

 A mix-up seems to have been made in some football data base ESPN and MLS use, leading to this error being repeated all over the net on many football sites.

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Durante's eligibility for NZ: 

In a worse case scenario FIFA have disqualified teams from competitions for fielding ineligible players: 

- In a case in 2011, Fifa disqualified the Equatorial Guinea women's team from the London Olympics qualifying phase and suspended forward Jade Boho Sayo for two months over her disputed nationality.

- In August 2011, FIFA expelled Syria from the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification process following the appearance of George Mourad in a senior qualification match against Tajikistan. Mourad had made friendly match appearances for Sweden earlier in his career, but had not requested permission from FIFA to change national associations prior to playing for Syria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_eligibility_rules

- However, this year Burkina Faso , Gabon and Sudan have all been docked points during the 2014 World Cup qualifiers for using players deemed to be ineligible for various reasons - but not expelled from the competition...Equatorial Guinea are currently under investigation for fielding an ineligible player in an April qualifier where none of the Equatorial Guinea starting line-up was born there: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22092031

I think it will work in Durante's favour that he asked FIFA for permission to play for New Zealand months prior to taking the field (even if they didn't rule on it) and he fulfills all other FIFA requirements under Statute 17 with the five year continuous residency the only thing questioned. He fulfills the requirement to hold the permanent nationality of a country without being dependent upon any residency requirements etc.

I think FIFA will decide that three months spent on loan from a New Zealand club to a team in the same league won't be material.

(They should make an exception anyway because it's one of a handful of leagues internationally that FIFA allow to field teams from more than one country).

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Found this from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAF) - clearly the interpretation has to be in the spirit of what FIFA intended -i.e. to stop countries bringing in foreign players with no demonstrated tie to the country.: http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/10_e._CAS_Irish_case.pdf

"The interpretation of the statutes and rules of a sport association has to be objective

and always start with the wording of the rule. The adjudicating body will have to 

consider the meaning of the rule, looking at the language used, and the appropriate 

grammar and syntax. The identification of the intentions of the association which 

drafted the rule will be further taken into consideration, as well as any relevant 

historical background and the regulatory context in which the particular rule is 

located. In this respect, according to article 8 of the Swiss Civil Code, the party 

alleging an analysis bears the burden of demonstrating the accuracy of it. It is not 

sufficient for it simply to make an assertion as to the relevant rules’ derivation."

Far out that article on stuff re: Dura annoyed me. We all knew going into the game that we wanted the Solomons to appeal his eligbility, yet it says NZ Football are in hot water for feilding a player believed to be Andrew Durante.. what the! 

Just two things on Dura:

1. I've heard some criticsm of NZF, but really isn't it FIFA's fault for mucking around with his eligibility proceedings for so long?

2. Does anyone know whether Dura plans to stay around in NZ once his playing career is over? Because I can't help but feel slightly moralistic if he has no plans to remain here and simply wants to play international football. (Note: This is completely irrelevant to the issue) 

Five years continuous residence.

Rules say continuously. so the stint would reset the clock.

So going on holiday would mean the clock resets too?

Holidaying assumes you are living back in NZ so would have thought it was fine.

for me, spending 3 months working in another country seems dubious. 

Well I guess the question is, whether FIFA set a higher bar than what the NZ govt sets.

I wouldn't automatically assume he met the citizenship rules. The minister can do what ever he likes and this is the type of case they may well have used their discretion. Was he absent for 126 days? Very likely three months is usually 93 days. How many away trips did he have with the Phoenix and how many days do they stay there? Throw in a holiday to Ausi in the off season and he is likely over

Like I said previously, 'Residence' does not necessarily entail continuous physical presence for the set amount of time. But it's up to NZF to make that case to FIFA.

I know the meme here is that NZF are incompetent boobs, but this is what they wanted, this is why they played Dura in the dead rubber so they could get a firm answer one way or another, so they wouldn't be wasting all this money if they didn't think they had a case and were prepared to fight it.

I think the thing with Sydney can be looked at from this one angle:

Where was his mail being delivered? Where did his wife and child live? Was he calling Sydney home or was he just bunking down at Mums?

It's easy for FIFA to say that technically this and technically that but common sense says 'he lives in Wellngton'

My understanding was FIFA had given us the non-official 'OK' to play Durante in the Solomons. Not so?

the scariest thing for me is that de jong is still fronting the issue for NZ football.

Yeah, they need to take it seriously and provide a strong argument. But FIFA itself appeared a bit uncertain initially (which is why they dragged their feet on giving the official green light), so I think they're there to be convinced.

It's all on the NZF now.

We're fucked then

It's a pretty crap system where it takes a protest to get FIFA off their arse and make a ruling. It should have been as simple as NZF presenting their case [application] with FIFA saying yes or no before he played. All the rest is just bullshit.

A ruling should have been made before hand but FIFA refused to do it.

and why wouldnt they he is a new zealand citizen now and back then also