By Oliver Sparrow, writing from London

Mikel Arteta and his potential eligibility to play for England is one of the hottest topics buzzing around the English media at the moment.

Arteta has now resided in England for five years, after joining the Toffees in 2005, meaning he is now eligible to apply for British citizenship. He has never represented his native Spain at full international level, so a successful application for a British passport would make him available for selection by Fabio Capello. However, his potential inclusion in future England set-ups has been met with derision in some camps. The debate becomes most heated when discussing not whether he could play for England, but rather whether he should.

What riles many England fans is that they perceive Arteta to be Spanish, and not English – the England team should be for English players, not foreigners. There are many ways in which this argument can be rebuffed.

Firstly, International player selection rules state that you can play for England just so long as one of your grandparents holds (or held) a full British passport. So, to construct a hypothetical situation, there could be a player who was a Spanish national, had lived and played football in Spain all his life, had not yet represented Spain at full International level, but had one British grandparent. To all intents and purposes this player is entirely Spanish. He doesn’t even speak a word of English. However, under selection guidelines, he is entirely eligible to play for England. This player is clearly less ‘English’ than Arteta, yet he can play for England without even having to apply for a British passport.

In fact, previous England squads have indeed included a player who had never (at the time) lived in England. Owen Hargreaves was born in Calgary, brought up in Canada and moved to Germany to start his professional football career with Bayern Munich, with whom he stayed until 2007 when he joined Manchester United. He qualifies to play for England through his parents, his father being English and his mother Welsh. No one was complaining that he wasn’t English when he turned in a string of fantastic performances for England during the 2006 World Cup. English may be his native tongue, but he is arguably less English than Arteta, having never lived in the country prior to 2007.

It is not clear how having English heritage actually makes you English. For instance, my grandmother holds a Swiss passport. Under the same rulings, I would be eligible to play for Switzerland. I haven’t visited the country since I was a baby, can’t speak the language/s and have no idea of their customs, values, or culture – having never lived there. Imagine there is a Turkish player who has played for Basel FC for the last four-and-a-half seasons, but who has never played for Turkey. This Turkish player is clearly more Swiss than I am, yet I am eligible to play for their national team, and he is not.  You can negate this counter-argument by positing that the ‘heritage ruling’ for International selection should be scrapped, but this would mean waving goodbye to players like Hargreaves, and also avoids the problem of when a player becomes ‘English enough’ to play for England.

At what point of residing in England can Arteta be perceived to become English? Obviously this can’t just happen in a split-second moment of realisation. He isn’t going to wake up on the morning of his sixth year of residence and start talking with a thick Scouse accent. Five years seems like a sensible time for someone to have lived in the country and learnt enough about its culture and customs to be embraced and accepted by society as a British citizen. If Arteta wants to become a British citizen, then there should be no reason why he shouldn’t be able to become one. However, there is another issue at hand here.

 Arteta should only apply for citizenship if he wants to be a British citizen. If his sole motive for application is to play for the English national team, then the whole process starts to become suspect. It devalues what it is to be a British citizen and indeed also makes a mockery of the England selection process. There is a firm belief that playing for your national team is an act of representing your country, not yourself. This is why it is important that Capello does not guarantee, or in fact offer, selection for the England team to Arteta prior to his citizenship application. For Arteta to be accepted by the English media and fans, he needs to want to be a British citizen independently of a desire to play international football. Obviously, this will be next to impossible for Arteta to prove to the public. If he does indeed get citizenship and ends up playing for England, he will have a tough task on his hands persuading people that he is in it for the team rather than for himself. Conversely, if he plays badly for England, then he will doubtless be made a scapegoat for their shortcomings. These are things which he will have to consider.

If he does get citizenship, though, there is no reason why Capello should not consider him for the England team. In fact to do so would be plain discrimination. If he is available for selection and Capello deems him good enough to play for the team, then he must be selected. Capello must pick the best players available to him, regardless of their colour, creed or country of birth.

Another argument against his selection is that it might harm the dressing room atmosphere. This makes absolutely no sense at all and is an argument that seems steeped in xenophobia. If he is a British citizen and has got into the England team on his own footballing merit, then I’m sure that the rest of the team in the dressing room would embrace him as one of their own and treat him just the same as everyone else. Hargreaves didn’t seem to cause any problems in this regard, so I don’t see why Arteta would either. His command of the English language is also very good, so there would be no reason why his presence should affect dressing room atmosphere.

Some believe that Arteta’s selection for the England team would be denying an English-born youngster the opportunity to learn and develop in that position.

International football is not the platform for player development. Of course it is important over time to blood new players and give them the chance to settle at international level if they are good enough to do so, but essentially you need to pick your best players if you want to win. Player development needs to happen at club level. It is at their respective clubs where they need to play and learn and become good enough for international competition. Whether or not English clubs are good at doing this is a discussion for another time, but the fact remains that the England (or any other international) team is not the place for young players to develop. That’s what club and age-level international football is for.  If Arteta was playing for England, but there was a young player who was regularly playing to a higher standard at club level in Arteta’s position, then obviously the young player should be given his chance. Having Arteta playing for England would not stop youth development. The young players will still come through if they are good enough. As stated before, you pick the best players available to you at the time. Selection should be based on form, not potential.

You only have to look at other countries to see how well they have assimilated players into their national teams who qualified through residency rulings.  Cacau played for Germany in South Africa, Deco plays for Portugal and Eduardo plays for Croatia. All three lived in those respective countries and successfully applied for citizenship. If that’s what Arteta wants to do, then he is following in some established footsteps – on the international scene at least. The England rugby and cricket teams have also greatly benefited from players who were not born in England. Triumphs in the 2003 Rugby World Cup and 2010 World Twenty20 Cup certainly would not have been achieved without those players who were not English-born.

Arteta might even be able to teach English-born players in the England team a thing or two in terms of mentality. England wilted again at the World Cup in South Africa, and perhaps it would help if they were joined by a player who has greater experience of playing football abroad. He might be able to add a new dimension to the dressing room and push the rest of the team onto better things.

If Arteta does get British citizenship, then there doesn’t appear to be a coherent argument (that doesn’t take into account his footballing ability) against him being picked for the England national team. The fact that he was not born in England should not act as a barrier to him. If he is fit and in-form, then Capello should give him his chance. He is a player of undoubted quality and proven ability in the Premier League, and could be just the man to light up England’s midfield.