France to stop picking residency qualified players

[niallni]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/38389827

Big step forward for rugby i think

[neiliog93]

Good decision, with the financial muscle of the Top 14 clubs and the fairly useless French academies it was becoming a bit of a farce for the French national team.

It's right to extend the qualifying period to 5 years and I think from an Irish perspective (or any country) there should be a limit of project players to say, 3 in a starting XV, 4 in a matchday squad and 5 in a 31-man RWC squad.

[johng]

Gareth Anscome's Ma is Welsh. He is not qualified on residency.

[dropkick]

Good on them. It was getting a bit ridiculous with all the non French players in their squad.

[Dave Cahill]

Domestic political posturing in an election year and nothing more.

[bonzo]

Looked up what you have to do to get a French passport - need to show you've got French nationality, and to apply for that you've got to have been habitually resident in France for 5 years. So effectively they're just jumping to that longer residency period before they're pushed by World Rugby into it?
Minimum 5 years for naturalisation in Ireland too btw

[simonokeeffe]

as I posted elsewhere (wahhhh) apparently the only player this stops from getting more caps in Antonio

Did have a feeling though the French would go down some sort of route in this regard

[offshorerules]

I think this is just spin to be honest.

[Dave Cahill]

I think this is just spin to be honest.

Of course it is, Laporte is the president of the FFR, he doesn't actually make policy, no more than Stephen Hilditch does. Hes a high profile member of a centre right political party looking to move to the right in an election year to grab some of the floating FN voters - what better than 'France for the French'.

[ronk]

as I posted elsewhere (wahhhh) apparently the only player this stops from getting more caps in Antonio

Did have a feeling though the French would go down some sort of route in this regard

Existing international players are grandfathered in.

[simonokeeffe]

as I posted elsewhere (wahhhh) apparently the only player this stops from getting more caps in Antonio

Did have a feeling though the French would go down some sort of route in this regard

Existing international players are grandfathered in.

Think I get ya, so Antonio doesnt have to cool his heels for a year?