Dear J Stein sb,
You are correct in the case of Qatar. Other Gulf countries are also in
the habit of "buying" athletes, meaning that they are paying athletes
from poor countries, who are not in their own national teams, money,
in order for them to acquire their citizenship and to represent this
country.
Don't ask me please about the psychology behind it, because I am not
sure I could explain how it is a Qatari national pride, when a
Bulgarian wins an Olympic Gold medal, when he is representing the
country. Since the Gulf countries are not democratic, I guess that
there is no control over the spending the regime makes, in order to
"purchase" an athlete; and perhaps people do feel proud, when their
country wins Gold, even if the athlete himself cannot even speak their
language.
However, I could give you several examples, as you asked:
Qatar, football (soccer), "Ailton, whose 20 goals in 23 matches have
fired Werder Bremen to the top of the Bundesliga, is reported to be
set to sign a contract which would effectively make him a member of
the Qatar national team. [...]
Ailton is one of several international players who are not good enough
to represent their country of origin but who has been head-hunted to
help the Gulf State emerge as a football power." (Source: QATAR ACCUSE
GERMANY OVER AILTON CLAIM, Sporting Life,
<http://www.sportinglife.com/football/overseas/germany/news/story_get.dor?STORY_NAME=international_feed/04/03/08/SOCCER_Qat-Qatar_Nightlead.html>).
More on players playing for Qatar in recent news:
Google News
<http://news.google.com/news?q=%22play+for+qatar%22&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn>
:
Also Dede will Play for Qatar
Iran Sports Press, United States - 5 Mar 2004
<http://www.iransportspress.com/artman/publish/article_558.shtml>
Qatar, as I mentioned before, also naturalised Bulgarian weight lifters:
"It has been common knowledge for some time that Qatar paid Bulgaria,
a country which is to weightlifting what Brazil is to football - $1
million to buy seven of its lifters last year. To make it all
above-board and bestow a kind of Cat Stevens sheen on it all, the
Qataris even game them Arabic names to put the seal on their new
nationality. Thus, Valentin Sarov became Nasser Sarouf Fadel, Petar
Tanev became Saleem Nayef Badr and Andrey Ivanov became Sulyan Abbas
Nader.
Just when we thought the Bulgarians still effectively had a
weightlifting team in the Games after all, an Australian Olympic
official walked into the press centre grinning broadly. He brought a
missive from the President of the Qatar Weightlifting Federation,
Mohamed Yousef A Al-Mana. The Qatar team, it appeared, had strayed
outside the Olympic Village the night before and had been cooked
Arabian food. It had disagreed with them and they had been suffering
so badly from diarrhoea all day that they would not be able to compete
later in the evening. Co-incidence, that.
The whole thing was starting to reek as foully as a Bulgarian bowel
movement but the IWF?s vice-president, Sam Coffa, finished things off
with aplomb when he was asked about the practice of buying another
country?s athletes. ?Now you are entering into the professional and
commercial areas of sport,? he said. ?I saw a rather darkish gentleman
playing basketball for Italy the other night and I am sure he is not
Italian. If it?s a concern, so what. This is the modern world.?
(SOURCE: Oliver Holt, "Comedy of globetrotting Bulgarians", The Times,
Friday, September 22 2000,
<http://www.times-olympics.co.uk/communities/weight/weightreport6.html>).
Back to football:
Tunisia, football (soccer), two Brazilian athletes:
SOURCE: see first example; and
"Brazilian striker Francileudo dos Santos took Tunisian nationality in
time to make his debut last month and is the Carthage Eagles' top
scorer at this tournament.
[...]
Another Brazilian-born import, Clayton, is likely to start in defence
on Saturday."
(SOURCE: More than just a final, By Stuart Roach, BBC Sports,
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/3486391.stm>).
In another story "In 1995, Wilson Kipketer, running in the 800m for
Denmark, his adopted country, was branded a traitor after beating
fellow Kenyans at the World Athletics Championships in Gothenburg,
Sweden." (SOURCE: "Want Quick Wins? 'Import' Your Sportsmen"
<http://www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/21072003/Sports/Sports210720030.html>).
In this article, there are many other examples of Kenyan obtaining
foreign nationalities and representing richer countries.
The first article, from Sporting Life, also mentions these examples:
"France have naturalised the likes of Ghanaian-born Marcel Desailly
and Senegalese-born Patrick Vieira.
However, both those players changed nationality before they had become superstars.
Other controversial deals have seen Argentinian Mauro Camoranesi
represent Italy, Nigerian-born Emmanuel Olisadebe play for Poland and
Brazilian Deco picked for Portugal after being naturalised.
Germany's Gerald Asamoah hails originally from Ghana." (ibid.)
But it should be noted, that in these cases, the player was
naturalised much before his talent could fit the national team. There
were similar naturalisations of East European athletes who sought
asylum in the West, during the Cold War: although they also
represented their new country sometimes, this was a fringe benefit.
Another famous example of an athlete representing another country
because of political problems, is the South African Zola Budd, who
represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games, due to the political
boycott on her country.
I hope this answers your question. My search strategy was to search,
first, for the Ailton story, and from then, I just went on, especially
helped by Google News. Please contact me if you need any further
clarifications on this answer before you rate it. |
,
0 Comments
)