{"id":292284,"date":"2025-11-19T02:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T02:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/292284\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T02:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T02:29:10","slug":"feds-helped-push-through-citizenship-for-english-soccer-player-in-time-to-join-canadian-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/292284\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds helped push through citizenship for English soccer player in time to join Canadian squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Alfie Jones (15) and his Canadian teammates stand for their national anthem before a friendly match between Canada and Venezuela at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Tuesday.CHANDAN KHANNA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

He is not the first soccer<\/a> player to fly a flag of convenience in the run up to the World Cup, nor is he the only foreign-born player on Canada\u2019s national soccer team. <\/p>\n

But few will have left it so close to their first match for Canada to take the citizenship oath. <\/p>\n

The Canadian national soccer team\u2019s newest recruit is Alfie Jones, a Bristol-born defender who plays for second-tier English team Middlesborough. <\/p>\n

On Monday he took the citizenship oath in time to play for Canada on Tuesday in a pre-World Cup friendly match against Venezuela. <\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s application for Canadian citizenship \u2013 made possible because he had an Alberta-born grandmother \u2013 was pushed through with the help of a government minister and a senior public servant in time for Tuesday\u2019s kick off. <\/p>\n

Madrid’s El Clasico offers Canada a playbook for peaceful World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

The soccer player has the right to Canadian citizenship because of recent changes allowing Canadians born abroad to pass on citizenship rights. <\/p>\n

The process of gaining citizenship for so-called Lost Canadians usually takes around six months, a top official in the immigration department told Senators at a committee hearing on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada declined to say how long it took the department to process Jones\u2019s application saying they did not comment on individual cases. <\/p>\n

Jesse Marsch, head coach of Canada\u2019s Men\u2019s National Soccer Team, on Monday publicly thanked Adam van Koeverden<\/a>, the secretary of state for sport \u2013 a former Olympic gold medalist \u2013 and Chris Fox, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council for helping his newest recruit gain Canadian citizenship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to acknowledge a lot of people inside our organization, as well as the Canadian government, who helped us push this through in a respectful way, but in a way that showed urgency and importance for Alfie and for our team and for our preparation for the World Cup,\u201d Marsch told reporters ahead of Tuesday\u2019s match with Venezuela in Florida.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada head coach Jesse Marsch, centre, thanked government officials on Monday for having Alfie Jones’ Canadian citizenship sorted in time for him to suit up on Tuesday night.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Jones, 28, had reportedly hoped to take the oath last week so he could take part in last week\u2019s game against Ecuador. But instead he had to watch the match, which ended in a scoreless draw.<\/p>\n

Don Chapman, a long-time advocate for Lost Canadians who has helped with dozens of cases, said the immigration department has not always been so quick to approve applications for citizenship from athletes born abroad.<\/p>\n

Texas-born surfer Erin Brooks, whose grandfather was born and raised in Montreal, was turned down for Canadian citizenship, which meant she could not compete for Canada. The elite surfer tried again and was granted a right to a Canadian passport by former immigration minister Marc Miller early last year. <\/p>\n

Alyson Fair, a spokesperson for van Koeverden, a former world champion sprint kayaker, said, \u201cdecisions on citizenship are made by IRCC, not by the Secretary of State for Sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Soccer Canada had questions, he put them in contact with the appropriate contacts at IRCC, which is standard practice, as he would for any sport-related or constituent case,\u201d she said in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

Canadian men’s soccer team adds three dual national players to camp<\/a><\/p>\n

Van Koeverden denied he had helped the English soccer player jump the queue of people with citizenship applications. He told reporters on Tuesday he was just making sure \u201cthey have access to IRCC officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

As one of the hosts of next year\u2019s soccer World Cup, Canada does not have to qualify. The national team has been playing friendly matches, with Tuesday night\u2019s match against Venezuela being its final one of the year. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s soccer team has a number of foreign born players, including Alphonso Davies, who was born in a Ghanaian refugee camp, after his parents had fled the civil war in Liberia. He came to Canada when he was 5. Luc de Fougerolles was born in England to a Canadian father and an Iranian-born English mother. He plays for Belgian Pro League club Dender EH, on loan from English premier league club Fulham.<\/p>\n

Canada Soccer did not say precisely when Jones had submitted his application for Canadian Citizenship. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud that Alfie Jones is now one of Canada\u2019s newest citizens and will represent Canada Soccer\u2019s Men\u2019s National Team tonight,\u201d said Canada Soccer spokesperson Paulo Senra on Tuesday, a few hours before kickoff. <\/p>\n

Senate urged to give children adopted from overseas the same citizenship rights as those born in Canada<\/a><\/p>\n

The defender qualified as a Lost Canadian, under changes which followed a December 2023 Ontario court ruling that it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe began working with Alfie in the Fall of 2024, retained legal counsel, and guided him through gathering family documentation, submitting under the new legislation, completing review stages, and RCMP fingerprint clearance. The final step \u2013 a criminal database check \u2013 faced administrative delays, but we worked closely with IRCC and RCMP to move this last stage forward within the rules,\u201c Senra said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Secretary of State for Sport and Christiane Fox supported internal governmental communication on these efforts, and Regan Watts assisted with communications to government on behalf of Canada Soccer. The application followed all regulatory requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The immigration department has been processing applications for citizenship from people born abroad with Canadian forebears since the Ontario court ruling. It is also steering a bill through Parliament to change the law and reinstate Lost Canadians\u2019 citizenship rights. <\/p>\n

Bill C-3, which would allow Canadians born abroad to pass on citizenship to future generations born abroad, is in the Senate in its final parliamentary stages. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Alfie Jones (15) and his Canadian teammates stand for their national anthem before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-292284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}