In The Sadenning Frenzy Over The Future Of Adnan Januzaj, Only Jack Wilshere Gets Close To Talking Sense

England's latest star? Don't bank on it.

If you believe what you read in the papers and what's babbled over the phone in-lines then Adnan Januzaj is England's next great hope, Gazza with a few extra vowels and for whom peeing in public is something statues do rather than Jimmy Five-bellies.

The fact that a furore seems to have developed around an 18-year-old boy, not qualified for England, who has played well in one Premier League game says a lot about the parlous state of football and the utter cluelessness of those who are paid very well to sort it out, but as well as showing weakness it shows English football’s propensity for pomposity and disregard for anything other than the next headline, its also pretty offensive.

That's because Januzaj's peculiar history, the very reason that poaching him is still a possibility is a sad one that is far more important than whether we can hype ourselves up about whether it might be our year when Januzaj might under FIFA’s rules be able to actually play for England in 2018.

The reason Januzaj turned down a recent Belgium cap was not because as a little boy in Brussels he saw England's insipid performances in the 2006 world cup and felt a yearning to play in front of the empty seats of Club Wembley in the future, but because his parents were Kosovan refugees, and like a number of others he faces a horrid dilemma.

This is because Kosovo, an area which is majority ethnic Albanian which Serbia claimed (and still does) as its own and was prepared to viciously attack throughout the Yugoslav civil war of the 1990s to to make it that way (this was Tony Blair’s good war, remember?) doesn’t have an international team.

Kosovo doesn’t currently have an international side because Serbia and its allies (Russia) are blocking UN membership, and FIFA are worried in turn that allowing a non-recognised country into their club would set a precedent for other geopolitical custody battles like Gibraltar. Currently they have everything but a full international side and are allowed to play exhibitions. 

Until Kosovo is recognised, its remarkable footballing diaspora have a choice; to represent Albania (whom many identify with) or the countries they and/or their parents fled to. Hence a 2014 World Cup Qualifier last year between Switzerland and Albania which saw 14 players of Albanian extraction, with nine either born or with roots in Kosovo, three of whom, Valon Behrami, Xherdan Shaquiri and Granit Xhaka were playing for the Swiss. 

Switzerland's Kosovan contingent embrace during their game against Albania

The two teams face each other again on Friday, in a repeat of the match dubbed by Kosovo FA president Fadil Vokrri as “Kosovo A v Kosovo B”.

Shaquiri and Xhaka may have helped the Swiss national team to a 2-0  win in the earlier fixture, but there’s little doubt as to where their loyalties lie.

“My mother and father are from Kosovo, and my name says to all that I am not from Switzerland but from Kosovo,”  Shaquiri told the New York Times, adding: “For this time I play for Switzerland. But maybe when Kosovo play in FIFA, it is another time, and we see how many players go to Kosovo. For me, now it is no problem.”

As for Xhaka, he told the paper: “For now we play for Switzerland, but later we will see what will happen.”

On the other side that night was former Sunderland player Lorik Cana, who also lived in Switzerland for 10 years but chose to go the other route and represent Albania. Despite being Albania’s captain, there’s little doubt given the chance he’d love to represent Kosovo given the fact he added his signature to a petition aimed at gaining them international football, and has publicly canvassed FIFA to do so.

So Januzaj faces the sort of dilemma that one wouldn’t wish on anyone even without the FA and the English press’s assorted rent-a-gobs joining in; whether to cast his lot in with his adopted country, which happens to be a Belgian side with decidedly better prospects than England, Albania, a country he will undoubtedly feel a strong connection to, or wait on global geopolitics to allow him a passionate reunion with his parents’ homeland.

Jack Wilshere: Talking sense

All of which brings us to our own 'troubled' future star Jack Wilshere, who rather clumsily waded into the debate by saying that England players should be “English". Cue a row which immediately saw the Arsenal player portrayed as a man running for the leadership of the EDL in the absence of Tommy Robinson.

Wilshere said: "The only people who should play for England are English people,” adding: "If you live in England for five years it doesn't make you English. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I am not going to play for Spain.”

Jack Wilshere is 21 and a footballer who was asked a question he had to answer off the cuff, not a journalist with an innate grasp of English football’s cultural history. One doubts whether he considered the nuances of John Barnes or Wilfried Zaha’s origins in his answer (he later clarified what he meant, as you can see below). 

To give Wilshere the benefit of the doubt he may rather touchingly think of them as so English he didn't consider differing backgrounds in his remarks, given that in accordance with the home nations rule (explained below) they went to school here and are thought of by most of us to be ‘English’.

Kevin Pietersen then felt the need to wade in and with fellow England cricketer turned TalkSport loudmouth Darren Gough criticised Wilshere’s comments by citing the increasing number of our sporting stars who weren’t born amid these dark Satanic mills, stars like  Chris Froome, Pietersen himself, Mo Farah and Andrew Strauss.

Wilshere seemed a little confused by the ongoing media storm, but did appeal to football’s uniqueness, and clarified his remarks saying:"My view on football - going to a new country when ur an adult, & because u can get a passport u play 4 that national team - I disagree," which rather clears him of the airwaves' more stupid accusations, and which means he rather has a point. 

In most solo sports you’re more-or-less entitled to represent who you want anyway if you can get citizenship; if Andy Murray decided he was fed up of hearing gushing praise garbled through bowls of strawberries in cut-glass accents he could move to Paris, take citizenship and change his name to Andre Muret. It’s why Italy had a triple-jumper with the exotic name of Fiona May, born in the only part of Italy Garibali failed to unite, namely Slough.

Cricket (and rugby for that matter) has its own peculiar history; due to the links between Commonwealth nations and the fact that until relatively recently the game was run like an amateur club rather than with the ruthlessness which has for much longer been a feature of professional football. 

One of cricket's most infamous episodes also involved a man changing nationality to become English, that of Basil D'Oliveira who was denied the chance to play for his own country of South Africa (or even professionally at all) due to the colour of his skin. This would be an exception to Wilshere's point but its lack of a parallel in football rather proves why historically given the countries involved, cricket takes a different attitude. Later the healing scars of Apartheid and the quota system that ensured future D'Oliveira's got their chance would be part of what caused Pietersen to switch his allegiance to England.

Basil D'Oliveira: International hero

Although cricket is now among the sporting business elite, the small number of countries which participate, history and flexible infrastructure ensure that while Pietersen and Trott (Strauss harks back to the public school tradition of a ‘global Englishman’) may be a loss to South Africa,  their decision to play for England is well within cricket’s established international practices, which began with long-lost Englishmen representing parts of the Empire, and now sees those with links to the mother country return if they want to and are required. One look at All-Blacks sides down the years tells you all you need to know about rugby’s flexible attitude to national identity.

Farah's sport also offers up an interesting case; while our current 5000m (and 1000) hero came here as a refugee at the age of 8 making him an inspiring tale of British multi-culturalism, rather more controversially in 1984 The Daily Mail campaigned for another African born 5000m runner to become British. 

Predictably given The Mail's involvement Zola Budd wasn't a refugee but a talented young white South African unable to compete due to Apartheid restrictions. To the indignation of those who saw it as an opportunistic circumvention of the rules preventing South African athletes competing her citizenship was fast-tracked. Budd was later suspended for allegedly breaking the sporting boycott of the Apartheid regime. 

A rather less heart-warming story than Pietersen's pantheon of heroes, and one that should perhaps cause us to raise an eyebrow before deciding to make sporting success a part of immigration policy.

Football of course has a past too; Alfredo Di Stefano represented Argentina and Spain, as did Puskas after fleeing his native Hungary, but given that both their arrivals were propaganda coups for a fascist state, they don’t exactly show football at its most moral. 

In more recent times such moves have usually involved Brazilians plying their trade in far flung parts of the world, players overlooked by their country who’ve plied their trade for years in another (Marcos Senna, Deco, incidentally both Brazilian), or those with a distant family connection (Jack Charlton’s Ireland side, Mauro Camoranesi).  

 

In England’s case due to the home nations’ agreement our players not ‘born here’ usually have a non-footballing connection with the country, as due to the understandable fear of England poaching players who effectively live in the same country, it replaces FIFA’s five-year residency rule with an educational one. So Zaha, who came here at the age of four as an immigrant from Ivory Coast is ok, but Gareth Bale who lived in England for eight years but went to school in Wales, is not.

It’s actually rather a nice rule for footballers who tend to be well on their way to developing as players by the end of their time at school, allowing those who emigrated to Britain through choice or who sought refuge here the chance to represent their adopted country while excluding the type of talent grabbing frenzy we’ve seen since Saturday.

Which brings us back to the Januzaj case because it's totally different to any of the above: Imagine if the top European FAs naturalised their clubs’ foreign imports, who are arriving younger due to financial imperatives and UEFA’s home-grown player rule.  With the promise of mega-endorsement deals and glory, those from lesser nations or poorer backgrounds would find it hard to resist. It’s not difficult to see a future where African or Eastern European youngsters are Hoovered up by the likes of PSG, Barca, Real, Chelsea, Manchester City and company are encouraged to declare for their new home rather than improving their own national teams.

This is why football has to be different; part of its rich history is that of smaller footballing countries thrust into the limelight by an exceptional few players. Puskas' Magnificent Magyars who trounced England in the 1950s, the Croatian side which emerged from the ashes of the same civil war which saw Januzaj born in Brussels, Uruguay's two World Cups, or even (worryingly for England) plucky Montenegro's rise from non-country to challengers. If the likes of Januzaj are cherry-picked by football's monetary superpowers the sport will be a far less entertaining place.

The fact that given Januzaj’s personal history people seem more bothered about how we can crowbar him into a midfield with Wilshere than the fact that he’s an 18 year-old-boy with one of the most difficult decisions of his footballing life ahead of him is as sad as it is predictable, even without the possible ramifications which such a free-for-all would create.

So, while Januzaj’s possible midfield partner may have articulated his thoughts with the clumsiness you’d expect of a 21 year-old who’s spent most of his life playing football, he's talking far more sense than the assorted idiots salivating over the prospect of Man United’s latest star becoming England’s.

After a week of seeing what English football is all about, namely whipping itself up into an ill-disguised bout of unthinking onanism over the latest starlet to arrive on its casting couch, Adnan Januzaj may very may agree with Wilshere too.