The Football Association is pressuring Cubans living abroad to join the national team

The decline of Cuban football and the existence of legal support have led the Cuban Football Association (AFC) to begin to explore the possibility for Cuban players residing in Cuba. other countries to be summoned to the national team

According to an article published this Saturday in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde there is no legal basis that makes it impossible for Cubans who do not reside on the island to represent their country.

In the case of the football players that we have abroad, let us say that the athletes who have legally left Cuban citizenship in other countries, who left by personal decision and who are not allowed to do so, are not allowed to do so. have not played as representatives of these nations at international matches, fulfill the conditions, "said Rolando Reynaldo Almaguer, head of legal and financial affairs of the AFC. This variant does not include players who have left the island illegally or who have left sports delegations.

Although nothing legal prevents it, and on countless occasions, Cuban players who do not live on the island have made requests To be summoned by the team National, INDER and the rest of the island's sports authorities have preferred to ignore and train Cuban teams exclusively with the players of the national league, who have conspired with the quality of Cuban football and its results in the internacional arena

"We have players" says Reynaldo Almaguer "who have expressed their willingness to defend Cuban national team jerseys differently, and in the AFC we follow, in principle, the international team. agree not to reject them, but to evaluate each case with their possibilities, because eventually they have not lost their status as Cubans and that is their right. "

Currently, he There are six players interested in training the Cuban team, as defender Car los Vázquez, of Atlético de Madrid, and goalkeeper Christian Joel Sánchez, of Sporting de Gijón, two clubs belonging to the Spanish league.

Ramiro Domínguez Delgado, Legal Director of INDER, expressed that "there is a strategy approved by the Board of Directors of INDER since 2014 that regulates the process of Hiring athletes in Cuba and abroad and from which was born a policy that is being approved, hence the legal rules that will govern all of this. procedure. "

With this support, the AFC would only have to sign a contract with the player, previously authorized by his club to play with his team, according to FIFA rules.

The fact that legally these players can join the national team, leaves the decision on their inclusion in a non-legal ground, where all Cubans wishes that their national teams in any sport are fed by players not residing on the island.

The seemingly favorable position of the AFC in this regard and the seemingly favorable attitude of the INDER, could make football a pioneering sport. the possibility that Cubans begin to be seen in the sport without distinctions or exclusions regarding their place of residence or the path they have chosen to pursue their career, although they continue to weigh for the time being on those who escaped from the island by illegal routes or by abandoning delegations.