Sports lawyer Valery Fedoreev talked about the hopes of former Ukrainian Shakhtar football player Alexander Rosputko, who plans to obtain Russian citizenship, to join the Russian national team. In his statement to socialbites.ca, the expert noted that the International Football Federation (FIFA) regulates such situations and there is a nuance that may not allow Rosputko to play for the Russian national team.
“If a football player falls into this category, Russian citizenship can now be obtained in an accelerated manner. If we talk about the sports component, the issue of changing football citizenship is regulated by Art. 15 Arrangements for the implementation of the FIFA Regulations. The criteria for changing football citizenship are as follows. A player can change national team once before turning 21.
At the same time, there are important nuances. First of all, if he played for the A team (that is, the main team of the country), he will no longer be able to play for another team. Secondly, if he played in the youth national team of Ukraine, then he will be able to play in the national team of a new country (Russia) only if he already had Russian citizenship at the time he played for Ukraine. It turned out that if a player of Shakhtar did not have Russian citizenship when he played in the Ukrainian youth team, he could not play for the Russian national team. But in any case, the application to change football citizenship is submitted to the FIFA secretariat, and the final decision is made by the Committee on the Status and Transfer of Players,” Fedoreev concluded.
On October 13, it was learned that Rosputko did not return to his hometown after the away match against Belgium Antwerp in the UEFA Youth League. It was noted that only his neatly abandoned jersey was found at the airport and that the football player deleted all his posts on social networks and stopped answering calls. Later it became known that he was in Russia, and the football player’s father said that Rasputko was planning to obtain Russian citizenship. On Monday, October 23, Shakhtar announced the unilateral termination of the contract with the player.
Previously Fedoreev saidRussian clubs with which Rosputko can sign a contract.