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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Well yes. Because they're all part of the U.K. Would you deem a Quebec team and an Ontario team more worthy of a "World Cup" qualification?
But that citizenship is for Olympic purposes only.
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They play for the region they were born in, and thus not against it. It's kind of a special case and I don't think the single straw man of "well the UK aren't separate countries...sort of...." thing holds as much weight. If FIFA all of a sudden decided that they were going to make a team with all players U23 and combine NA into one team to help it be more competitive, everyone in the soccer world would find it absolutely ridiculous. I don't understand the problem with some nations stronger than others. FIFA champions usually end up as one of 5 or 6 nations, no different. And, again, no players are playing against their own nations, particularly ones that would make their team if they were "old enough".
If every province of Canada participated in a world cup separately, with no team representing Canada itself, I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with it in that context. It would be weird and I wouldn't like it, but again, the UK is kind of anomaly of sovereignty.
So the athletes competing for multiple countries don't have legitimate citizenship for those nations? They get them before the Olympics and and renounce them after?