Nationality in sporting events describes the affiliation of a participant in an international sporting event with one or more nations, typically as a member or potential member of a national team. The participant's sporting nationality is often the same as their

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

at birth, but many sports have rules that allow participants to change nationalities, add a nationality, or represent a country to which they have limited ties through birth or ancestry. A participant in a sporting event may have a sporting nationality without necessarily being a member of a national team.

Athletics

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

World Athletics World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...

eligibility rules define which member nation or nations an athlete may represent. Eligibility to represent a nation typically derives from legal citizenship, attained either through birth of the participant or a recent ancestor, or through residence, marriage, or other means. World Athletics also maintains eligibility rules related to new countries, countries that no longer exist, or countries that change their affiliation with the organization, and reviews requests for transfers of allegiance made by athletes. There is typically a multi-year waiting period for athletes who request a transfer of allegiance.

Association football

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

, FIFA maintains eligibility rules for participants in international competitions. In 2004, FIFA amended its wider policy on international eligibility, ruling that players must be able to demonstrate a "clear connection" to a country that they had not been born in but wished to represent. This ruling explicitly stated that, in such scenarios, the player must have at least one parent or grandparent who was born in that country, or the player must have been resident in that country for at least two years. The residency requirement for players lacking birth or ancestral connections with a specific country was extended from two to five years in 2008.

Equestrian

The

Fédération Équestre Internationale The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (, FEI) is the international governing body of equestrian sports. The FEI came into being following the Olympic Congress in Lausanne (SUI) in 1921 from May 28 to May 30. It's headquarters are ...

regulates sport nationality for equestrians.

Olympic Games

Participants in the Olympic Games must be a national of the country (formally, the National Olympic Committee) that they are representing at the Games. Like World Athletics, the International Olympic Committee's charter contains provisions for participants to change allegiances, and rules related to changes in the national status of states and territories.

Rugby

In addition to rules related to birth and biological ancestry,

World Rugby World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

, the governing body for

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

, specifies that if a player has been legally adopted under the laws of the relevant country, descent is traced through the adoptive parent(s).

Change of nationality

Change of nationality by participants in international sporting events has been the subject of academic study. Changing nationalities can often be done by obtaining citizenship in the new country, waiting a specified period, and gaining approval from the relevant national federation or other governing body for a sport.

References

{{reflist Sport and nationality Change of nationality in sport