Rugby: Foreign legion's jersey of convenience

Former Hurricanes and Blues wing David Smith, now playing for Toulon, has been named in the French squad despite not yet being eligible to represent France. Photo / Getty Images

There's a year to go until the World Cup - just enough time for it to be turned into an eligibility farce.

The potential for the game's biggest event to be laughed out of town is growing. The prospect of teams turning up with legions of players who don't really have a strong link to the jersey they wear is real.

France have taken the unprecedented step of naming 10 'foreign' players in their wider World Cup squad who are not yet eligible.

Included in this group are New Zealanders, Australians, Samoans, Fijians and South Africans who will, according to coach Philippe St Andre, "eventually declare their love for France. But I can tell you that the 10 players are very much in love with France."

This is surely a bridge too far, a move that says test football is doomed unless something is done. France will be at the World Cup. They will wear blue, sing La Marseillaise, but will they be French?

It's been creeping this way for a while, reaching the point last year when almost a quarter of the original Six Nations squads featured players not born in the countries they were playing for.

Club rugby in Europe has welcomed an influx of foreigners, many of whom are now graduating into test squads courtesy of the three-year residency rule.

The French are at the heart of this regression to a forgotten age of sham eligibility. They have flooded their Top 14 competition to the extent there are some weekends in some positions when there won't be a single French-qualified player starting for his club.

The French Federation have tried to limit the foreign influx but have no valid mechanisms with which to work. It's a losing battle, probably a lost battle, which is why it appears as if they are proactively working with the situation rather than fighting against it.

They are not alone, however.

All the major European nations are doing it, with players like Jared Payne, Josh Strauss and Michael Paterson on track to play at the World Cup on the basis they have respectively lived in Ireland, Scotland and England for long enough to satisfy the rules.

The natural progression of this has been for clubs to work in conjunction with their national unions and target specific players for specific positions. Ireland is full of players brought over on club contracts topped up by the national union, providing a controlled progression to a test jersey.

It's succession planning - not through the organic development of home-grown talent, but through financial enticement of other country's players.

An already bad situation is heading towards a full-scale eligibility shemozzle following the discovery of the Olympic Games loophole.

On the face of it, the loophole could be worked to benefit the overall quality of the world game without compromising its integrity.

Players who have played for one nation are able to switch allegiance but only if they hold a relevant passport. Like everything in rugby, there's the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

The spirit, in this case, is fairly obvious. Possession of a passport means there's a genuine attachment to the country a player is hoping to represent.

But the indications are that some countries might be more willing to issue passports than others. Governments can be persuaded to bend rules if granting a passport could help a nation secure an Olympic medal.

Rugby has an eligibility issue every bit as damaging as the one it had 14 years ago with the 'Granny-gate scandal'.

The IRB, aware of how weak and open to abuse their eligibility laws were back then, moved to tighten things up and restore a little order.

It was no longer possible to play for two nations and documentation was needed to prove where parents and grandparents were born.

For a while after, the international game was largely credible - the vast majority of players had genuine, emotional, cultural and physical links to the countries they played for.

There were a few rogue Kiwis who washed up in the Celtic nations but not in any great numbers and always on the back of a grandparent's legitimate heritage.

But everything has changed and, once again, it feels like international jerseys are almost being given away.

The three-year residency rule is crying out to be amended. Not that the IRB feel this way.

"All I can say is that it [eligibility] has been looked at recently by a working group and the recommendation was that we should stick with it for a number of reasons," IRB chief executive Brett Gosper said. "It doesn't come up very often as a subject.

"It doesn't seem to be a subject on the table that requires attention. It came back to the three-year thing [residency rule] and, yes, it's not perfect, but the unintended consequences of extending that period seemed to outweigh the problems inherent in it."

Potential switchers

Possible French Foreign Legion
Uini Atonio (New Zealand)
François van der Merwe (South Africa)
Steffon Armitage (England)
Alex Tulou (New Zealand)
Rory Kockott (South Africa)
Brock James (Australia)
Blair Connor (Australia)
Noa Nakaitaci (Fiji)
David Smith (Samoa)
Scott Spedding (Australia)
English Foreign Legion
Manu Tuilagi (Samoa)
Billy Vunipola (Tonga/Australia)
Mako Vunipola (Tonga/New Zealand)
Brad Barritt (South Africa)
Michael Paterson (New Zealand)
Possible Irish Foreign Legion
Jared Payne (New Zealand)
Bundee Aki (New Zealand)
Tom McCartney (New Zealand)
Rodney Ah-Yoy (New Zealand)
Miah Nikora (New Zealand)
Possible Scottish Foreign Legion
Josh Strauss (South Africa).