A rule change was enacted during the 70th Fifa Congress in September 2020 that now permits players to change their nationality provided they have only participated in three competitive senior-level games before turning 21 and have not done so in any Fifa World Cup finals or continental finals.
In Qatar, there will be a few examples of players who have switched nationalities.
Below are the five players who have switched nationalities.
Inaki Williams
Inaki Williams, who was born in Bilbao, Biscay to Ghanaian parents. Williams spent most of his childhood living in Pamplona, joining Athletic’s youth academy in 2012.
He made his club’s senior debut in 2014, and since then, he has largely been a regular. Amazingly, from the start of the 2016–17 LaLiga season, he has been in every Athletic encounter. That is a streak of 241 straight games!
The quick attacker made his senior debut in 2016 against Bosnia and Herzegovina after playing youth international matches for Spain.
In 2018, he also played for the Basque representative team, a group from the area of Spain that many locals consider to be a separate nation.
On 5 July 2022, Williams announced that he was making himself available for Ghana.
Kalidou Koulibaly
Koulibaly never participated in a senior match for France; instead, he represented his own country at the youth international level before electing to begin representing Senegal at the comparatively late age of 24.
The defender began his professional career with Metz and was born in Saint-Die-des-Vosges. He has represented France at the Under-20 level, notably in the 2011 World Cup.
Didier Deschamps, the French coach, pursued him, but he ultimately chose to play for Senegal in 2015, and he has been a regular ever since.
He just transferred to Chelsea after spending several fruitful years with Serie A’s Napoli.
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting
The Bayern Munich attacker, who was born in Hamburg and represented Germany at both the Under-19 and Under-21 levels, opted to switch to the Cameroon national team very soon after.
His father is Cameroonian and his mother is German, and he represented his country of birth in the youth Euros before giving in to the allure of a guaranteed spot in the Indomitable Lions squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Hakim Ziyech
Ziyech was born in the Netherlands, where he played for them at the Under-20 and Under-21 levels until transferring to the Morocco Senior National Team in 2015.
The winger has recently returned to the national team after a dispute with former Morocco coach Vahid Halihodzic, who accused him of fabricating an injury to avoid being called up for the national side.
Before joining Ajax Amsterdam in 2016, Ziyech played for Heerenveen and FC Twente.
Munir
Munir was born in El Escorial, Madrid, and grew up in nearby Galapagar on a street likened to a “Little Morocco” by El Mundo. He progressed through the illustrious Barcelona youth system before making his senior debut for the Catalan giants in 2014.
He had been a star of the Spanish youth national teams, scoring goals for fun, and was given his first senior cap in 2014, aged 19, in a 5-1 win over Macedonia.
He did not receive another Spain cap, and as early as 2017, he asked to be allowed to play for Morocco instead of Spain in the 2018 World Cup.
This was rejected, however as soon as the rule modification went into effect, he was permitted to make his Atlas Lions debut, which he did against Mauritania in March 2021.
