OPINION: "Foreigners" playing for national teams

With the announcement of the Six Nations teams this week, my Twitter timeline had a fair few England supporters decrying the selection of non-English players. This, of course, isn't a new thing; back in the 70s a lot of the England cricket team were born in South Africa or Southern Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then called), and in recent years it has become more common for players in all sorts of sports to change nationality and compete for a new country.

Probably the most infamous example was when Zola Budd, a Soutt African runner, had her papers rushed through to allow her to avoid the sporting boycott her country of birth had placed on it and compete for the UK, a country for which she had little connection or knowledge, but a country who fancied a chance of an extra medal or two at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Of course, in the UK we have the nonsense of a huge number of sportsmen and women having to decide which constituent part (England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) they want to represent, and this can come down to the "nationality" of one of their four grandparents. In all sports, if we are to have international teams, the IK should have one national team as the premier elite team, not subdivisions.

We also have the nonsense of someone representing, say, Wales as a schoolboy international but becoming an England full international. Total nonsense.

So, with such a history of people changing nationality, why do some people still have a problem with it? There is, of course, only one possible answer: xenophobia - or, in some cases, racism. Nick Griffin and Nigel Farage would be proud of these Little Englanders and their attitudes to those who don't share the same country of birth, while the rest of have to bite our lips at the blatantly offensive beliefs if these moral Neanderthals.

Personally I find it bizarre that anyone has a loyalty or sense of belonging and kinship to a country that they have inherited purely by an accident of birth. Their mother could have been anywhere when she gave birth to them; nationality is an accident, and to exclude others on grounds of nationality is moronic, at best, and very dangerous, at worst.

The solution is easy, though the loud mouthed and ignorant xenophobes, supported by offensively nationalistic newspapers and an establishment that calls on "national pride" whenever they are at a low ebb. We need to have national teams selected on place of residence and not place of birth or. "legal nationality".

As I said, your place of birth is an accident. However, your place of residence is a choice. I choose to live in the UK, in the same way that Didier Drogba chooses to live in the UK. Sure, I'm unlikely to be chosen to represent any nation at any sport but, if I were, it would be a UK team. Drogba may well have been born in the Côte d'Ivoire but he has chosen to live and work in the UK. If he is to represent any national team it is more logical that he represents the country he has chosen to live in and not the country he moved away from.

Similarly, David Beckham could, at various times in his career, have represented the UK, Spain and the USA - and that way, at least, the GB Olympic team wouldn't have the nonsense of him begging to be selected in the GB Olympic football team in order to help promote Brand Beckham.

Let's stop playing the nationality card. It may have had a place a couple of centuries ago when few travelled around the world, but today nationality by birth is just silly. Nationality by choice is far more sensible, and is a kick in the teeth to all the horrible racists and xenophobes.