International Ambitions (Part Four)

Almost a month before Bolton returned to London to face West Ham Rahamat Riga Mustapha had failed to impress his manager Gary Megson and received a public rebuke in his manager’s press conference after the defeat by Fulham. “He really has got to learn how to play football in this country,” said Megson. “He carries the ball well and he wants to score all the goals, but there’s got to be another side to his game when we haven’t got the ball and he must adapt to the way that we play, because it can’t happen the other way around.” It was a stinging criticism, but Riga was hoping for better luck when Bolton visited West Ham’s Boleyn Stadium, but had to settle for a place on the bench despite the lack of match-fitness of Megson’s first choice striker the Swedish international Johan Elmander. He had another bitter pill to swallow as new Black Stars coach Milovan Rajevac’s interest in calling him up for Ghana had not been followed up as well. His international ambitions were being thwarted and worse still former Ghana coach Claude le Roy was right; he will never play for Ghana, because he is too old to qualify to change international allegiance.

The relevant part of Article 18 allowed a player who had dual nationality or had changed nationality to change international allegiance, but the player could only do so once and it had to be before they turned twenty-one if they had not played in a full international for the country that he wished to change from. Riga had played Under-21 football for the Netherlands, but had never worn the famous orange shirt for the senior Dutch team, so that would not stand in his way. However, Riga was twenty-six now, which was far too old to make the switch. Riga was born in Ghana and moved to the Netherlands. He had dual nationality, which therefore allowed him to change nationalities if he wanted to as long as he did it before he turned twenty-one, but that milestone had passed, so while Bolton would not stand in his way, he had a bigger problem; the rules were clear – Riga was indeed too old.

FIFA is very strict on the age requirement. Riga had a window of opportunity to change his international allegiance until he turned twenty-one. Le Roy always was interested in bringing young players through, but perhaps his response wasn’t the dismissive comment it first appeared to be. “He will never play for Ghana,” said le Roy in response to our query as to whether Riga would be called up, “he’s too old.” Many people are unaware of the requirements of Article 18, but le Roy appeared to be well informed; Riga has missed his chance and will probably never get to test himself in international football now unless he gets a surprise call up from Oranje coach Bert van Marwijk.

It is a pity from Ghana’s point of view as Riga excelled in Spain for Levante and scoring goals was the biggest problem in both the World Cup and African Cup of Nations, but Riga will almost certainly have to settle for club football to test himself now. It remains a mystery why Riga and his advisors failed to try to change his international allegiance before he turned twenty-one, especially as FIFA is unbending in its application of Article 18. Nevertheless, his loss might just prove to be Bolton’s gain.