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Jack Wilshere on England recruitment: “Keep England for the English”

By on October 8, 2013

Jack Wilshere has criticized England’s attempted recruitment of Manchester United starlet Adnan Januzaj, claiming only “English people” should play for the England national team.

Januzaj, who recently made a breakthrough into Manchester United’s first team at the age of only 18, was approached by the English FA in a bid to convince the Belgian born forward with Kosovan-Albanian parents to join the English national squad. Although at birth the winger was only eligible to play for either Belgium, Albania, Turkey, Serbia and Kosovo, FIFA’s rule which states Januzaj is able to play for a country it he has “lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 in the territory of the relevant association,” would allow him to join England in 2018.

Although the Belgium FA sought to confirm the teenager’s Belgian status for the rest of his career by calling him up for Rode Duivels‘ coming World Cup qualifiers, Januzaj declined.  But Wilshere, who could earn his 11th England cap over the weekend, insists:  “The only people who should play for England are English people.

“If you’ve lived in England for five years, for me, it doesn’t make you English.  You shouldn’t play,” the 21-year-old said. “It doesn’t mean you can play for that country. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I’m not going to play for Spain. For me an English player should play for England really.”

Wilshere went on to calm fears of England’s youth crisis, saying: I don’t think we should be worried at all,” he said. “You look in the Premier League and we saw Ravel Morrison burst onto the scene this season, and he is a great prospect for the future. It’s not just him. There are other great England players coming through as well.

“OK, there is a few foreign players as well, but I can learn from the foreign players at Arsenal. Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, they are top, top players, and I can only learn from them. It’s a positive, I think.

“Teams want the best players, and if you have the best players coming through the academy, you will play. If you are good enough, it doesn’t matter where you come from, but you have to be good enough.”

The Arsenal midfielder also added further apologies for allegedly smoking at a London club, which he admitted to doing.

“I know when I’ve done wrong,” Wilshere said. “I spoke to the boss and he supported me through it. He gave me a little telling off, dealt with it and it’s over. I said before, I’m not a smoker on 10-a-day or whatever, and I do genuinely believe it is wrong. I’m not just a footballer, I’m a top athlete and we have to be at the top of our game. You can’t be slacking behind your team-mates when you are competing in training. So, yes, it was wrong.”

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.