Nationality Swapping in World Athletics

Abstract

Nationality swapping in global sports challenges the common conceptions of citizenship, belonging and national identity. Athletes who represent a country in which they are not born are increasingly scrutinised and highly debated among academics, sport legislators, sports federations and in the (international) media. The practice has become so prevalent that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) felt obliged to reinforce and tighten its regulations regarding nationality changes. Their efforts were explicitly targeted towards countries in the Middle East. However, our data show that only 13.8% (N=695) of the cases were related to the Middle East. Relatively large numbers of male and female athletes who obtain passports in Middle Eastern countries come from Africa (especially Kenya). The combination of ‘rich oil countries’ and ‘vulnerable African athletes’ may well have triggered the concerns of the IAAF. In fact, this was the reason why the IAAF started to register and regulate passport swaps. Nevertheless, World Athletics officials did not highlight the existing nature of college (sport) scholarships in Canada and the USA. Therefore, this chapter argues that the practices of Middle Eastern countries in allowing passport swaps should be seen as a challenge to western notions of citizenship and national identity.