(11-14-2017 04:26 PM)Loco Bearcat Wrote:  

(11-14-2017 12:56 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(11-14-2017 11:52 AM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(11-14-2017 11:41 AM)Loco Bearcat Wrote:  

(11-13-2017 02:13 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  All very good things...the Passport issue is one I've always kind of wondered about. How is it that US players are the only people who have issues with that. Our antiquated Youth Labor laws are hindering a lot of things culturally and athletically.

US players aren't the only ones who have issues, Africans and Asians have a much harder time since an overwhelming majority of them have no European ancestry. South American players apply for passports from Spain, Portugal, and Italy when they are young however there are quotas and it also depends on when their family immigrated.

Yup. Its an EU/non-EU issue. Nothing to do with just the US. Commonwealth countries have a bit of an easier time with UK academies.

Uhhh...most Africans can get in through a French/Dutch/British passport exemptions due to the entirety of the western part of the continent (where most of the good footballers are) being a former "possession" of those countries. Hell, every Algerian has French heritage, every Nigerian has British heritage, and South African can apply for Dutch permitting...there are a ton of loopholes with African youth players. Hell, their families could just apply for refuge status and get in...that's happened way more than you'd think too.

I'm talking about African natives not the ones who immigrated or were born in Europe. Most of Algeria players are actually French born and raised plus the Dutch give most of their passports to the White Afrikaners and they're Rugby lovers. My parents are retired and they help out African families who have immigrated to Cincinnati. They said it was really difficult to immigrate to Europe which was their first choice due to proximity aaaand Linguistic reasons.

One of the Fathers was a professional player in Cameroon and was going to be on the 1990 Cameroon World Cup team until he tore his ACL 2 Months before Italia 90. He had just turned 20 and he couldn't get a French passport even though he had offers from Marseille and Monaco. He tried for years to immigrate to France and was never accepted. His 14 year old son is a magnificent player, tremendous athlete and technically gifted yet he doesn't always start for his club team because he is a scholarship player.