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Australian Dual Nationals 🇦🇺🏳️

Can’t believe people still think we were right to let the two Croats and the Greek guy go smh. They played instead the A-League, played for our youth teams and accepted senior call-ups only to not play and be told that another team would actually play them if they switched permanently. They’re not like the Italian who never played in the A-League or for our youth teams and actively refused to play for the Socceroos to pursue his pipe dream of playing for the Azzurri.

We really are the US, except instead of Mexicans it’s Europeans. It’s getting to the point where whenever a talented migrant talent comes through he or she either never gets called up or goes on and plays for another country.
 
Can’t believe people still think we were right to let the two Croats and the Greek guy go smh. They played instead the A-League, played for our youth teams and accepted senior call-ups only to not play and be told that another team would actually play them if they switched permanently. They’re not like the Italian who never played in the A-League or for our youth teams and actively refused to play for the Socceroos to pursue his pipe dream of playing for the Azzurri.

We really are the US, except instead of Mexicans it’s Europeans. It’s getting to the point where whenever a talented migrant talent comes through he or she either never gets called up or goes on and plays for another country.
Im guessing this rant comes from a league reddit? Haha
 
One observation I will make is that this is going to become a problem less and less over the years, because Australia doesn't really receive immigration from continental Europe any more (or certainly not to the extent it did 50 or 60 years ago). As far as I'm aware, Triantis, Segecic, Volpato and Arena all qualify through grandparents. That means the generation below them won't qualify for Italy, Greece, Croatia etc.

According to 2025 Australian Bureau of Statistics data (which is about as authoritative as you can get), the average age for a Greek born Australian is now 77, Italian is 74 and Croatian is 70.

I suspect it'll take another 20 years before we see this work through the system the whole way, but it'll happen eventually. For example, my Dad was born in Australia a year after my grandparents came over from Trieste, so when my son inevitably becomes a world class footballer, he won't qualify for Italy despite having the citizenship.
 
One observation I will make is that this is going to become a problem less and less over the years, because Australia doesn't really receive immigration from continental Europe any more (or certainly not to the extent it did 50 or 60 years ago). As far as I'm aware, Triantis, Segecic, Volpato and Arena all qualify through grandparents. That means the generation below them won't qualify for Italy, Greece, Croatia etc.

According to 2025 Australian Bureau of Statistics data (which is about as authoritative as you can get), the average age for a Greek born Australian is now 77, Italian is 74 and Croatian is 70.

I suspect it'll take another 20 years before we see this work through the system the whole way, but it'll happen eventually. For example, my Dad was born in Australia a year after my grandparents came over from Trieste, so when my son inevitably becomes a world class footballer, he won't qualify for Italy despite having the citizenship.
So any volpato born in 2015 will play for australia haha
 
One observation I will make is that this is going to become a problem less and less over the years, because Australia doesn't really receive immigration from continental Europe any more (or certainly not to the extent it did 50 or 60 years ago). As far as I'm aware, Triantis, Segecic, Volpato and Arena all qualify through grandparents. That means the generation below them won't qualify for Italy, Greece, Croatia etc.

According to 2025 Australian Bureau of Statistics data (which is about as authoritative as you can get), the average age for a Greek born Australian is now 77, Italian is 74 and Croatian is 70.

I suspect it'll take another 20 years before we see this work through the system the whole way, but it'll happen eventually. For example, my Dad was born in Australia a year after my grandparents came over from Trieste, so when my son inevitably becomes a world class footballer, he won't qualify for Italy despite having the citizenship.
So any volpato born in 2015 will play for australia haha
Precisely yes. I’ve brought this point up on here before. The downside is though that the dual international problem doesn’t go away. Australia continues to receive more and more immigrants each year, just from different sources. Instead of European countries, it’s now also other countries. You do still get cases like Ale Circati who was born in Italy, but for the most part Europeans are now well-established here over the past few generations. As we’ve seen from recent events, some of those immigrants can be even more hostile to Australia.
 
So any volpato born in 2015 will play for australia haha

They wouldn't really have a choice.

It's interesting comparing the list of our top 10 countries of migrants from now to the 1950s.

Here's the 2024/25 list (from ABS):
  1. India
  2. People’s Republic of China
  3. Philippines
  4. United Kingdom
  5. Pakistan
  6. Sri Lanka
  7. Nepal
  8. Vietnam
  9. South Africa
  10. Brazil
And here's a list from 1945 to 1959 (from a peer-reviewed academic article)
  1. United Kingdom
  2. Italy
  3. Netherlands
  4. Poland
  5. Germany
  6. Greece
  7. Malta
  8. New Zealand
  9. Yugoslavia
  10. Hungary
There's only 3/4 prominent football countries who would rank higher or roughly equivalent to Australia in the 2024/25 list (UK with its constituent parts and Brazil, and I think we'd only realistically lose players to Scotland and maybe Wales of those), while the older list is all football countries save for New Zealand.
 
They wouldn't really have a choice.

It's interesting comparing the list of our top 10 countries of migrants from now to the 1950s.

Here's the 2024/25 list (from ABS):
  1. India
  2. People’s Republic of China
  3. Philippines
  4. United Kingdom
  5. Pakistan
  6. Sri Lanka
  7. Nepal
  8. Vietnam
  9. South Africa
  10. Brazil
And here's a list from 1945 to 1959 (from a peer-reviewed academic article)
  1. United Kingdom
  2. Italy
  3. Netherlands
  4. Poland
  5. Germany
  6. Greece
  7. Malta
  8. New Zealand
  9. Yugoslavia
  10. Hungary
There's only 3/4 prominent football countries who would rank higher or roughly equivalent to Australia in the 2024/25 list (UK with its constituent parts and Brazil, and I think we'd only realistically lose players to Scotland and maybe Wales of those), while the older list is all football countries save for New Zealand.
The shift mostly comes from the abolition of the White Australia Policy. Of the 2024–25 list only three countries are bringing in large numbers of white immigrants: Brazil (mostly mixed), South Africa (diverse but the diaspora tends to be White South Africans) and the UK (like Australia quite multicultural but still majority Anglo). In the 1945–1959 list all of those countries were bringing in white or olive-skinned immigrants. The White Australia Policy was in place until the late 1960s and wasn’t completely gone till the early 1970s. After the Vietnam War immigration from Asia rapidly increased and therefore Asians (as in people from the entire Asian continent, not just “Asians”) then made up the majority of immigrants.
 
The shift mostly comes from the abolition of the White Australia Policy. Of the 2024–25 list only three countries are bringing in large numbers of white immigrants: Brazil (mostly mixed), South Africa (diverse but the diaspora tends to be White South Africans) and the UK (like Australia quite multicultural but still majority Anglo). In the 1945–1959 list all of those countries were bringing in white or olive-skinned immigrants. The White Australia Policy was in place until the late 1960s and wasn’t completely gone till the early 1970s. After the Vietnam War immigration from Asia rapidly increased and therefore Asians (as in people from the entire Asian continent, not just “Asians”) then made up the majority of immigrants.

Yeah exactly, and how great that it happened! The contribution of new African migrants to the local game in particular has been immense lately.

As we’ve seen from recent events, some of those immigrants can be even more hostile to Australia.

Dunno if I necessary agree with this; I don't remember any recent immigrant communities doing Nazi salutes at Australia Cup games.
 
The shift mostly comes from the abolition of the White Australia Policy. Of the 2024–25 list only three countries are bringing in large numbers of white immigrants: Brazil (mostly mixed), South Africa (diverse but the diaspora tends to be White South Africans) and the UK (like Australia quite multicultural but still majority Anglo). In the 1945–1959 list all of those countries were bringing in white or olive-skinned immigrants. The White Australia Policy was in place until the late 1960s and wasn’t completely gone till the early 1970s. After the Vietnam War immigration from Asia rapidly increased and therefore Asians (as in people from the entire Asian continent, not just “Asians”) then made up the majority of immigrants.
Can we have the soccer australia policy instead? More migrants from soccer nations
 
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