GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

In the World Cup, 'Nationality' Is a Relative Term

Tolga Ozyurtcu

Board of Contributors

Jun 25, 2018 | 08:00 GMT

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) watch their national teams square off in the first match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow on June 14.

(Pool/Getty Images)

Highlights

Nearly 10 percent of the athletes competing in the 2018 FIFA World Cup are playing under the flag of a nation they weren't born in.
The issue seems to be drawing more attention in the current tournament than it has in years past as athletes born in France or Germany, for example, compete for countries from which their parents or grandparents emigrated.
Despite the buzz, the practice is not a recent phenomenon and traces back at least to the 1934 World Cup in Italy.

In the internet era, the symbolic dimensions of the World Cup tournament make for easy content, often bordering on tropes. "Country X is playing for redemption and national pride after an absence of Y years" – 36 years, in Peru's case. Or "country Z's diverse squad represents the changing face of their populace and the future to come," as is true of France and Belgium. African teams get a particularly reductive treatment: From Tunisia to Senegal, each national soccer team is "the hope" of a continent. (And when the African teams come up short, some erudite pundit will be there to connect their countries' colonial legacies to the current corruption and instability in African soccer governance. The analysis won't be wrong, but that doesn't make it any more scintillating.) Of the many geopolitical narratives running through the World Cup, the use of foreign-born players seems to be getting more attention...

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