Exodus

Jamaica and Kenya are world running powerhouse, the Carribean country in the short sprints and the African country in middle distance and full marathon. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt, the greatest male and female sprinters inspired Jamaica to raise intergenerational runners. The Kenyans too, especially the kids who run to school everyday in high altitude, believed to factor running speed.

Runners in both countries are too crowded some attempted to switch nationality, to Turkey especially, for better chances at qualifying for the worlds and the Olympics. Or, for money. There is not enough space in their country. World Athletics however denied the en masse application, noting it is part of a coordinated recruitment strategy to attract overseas athletes through lucrative contracts. Otherwise, it compromises imperatives underlying eligibility rules and transfer of allegiance regulations.

Rightfully so. Any switch in nationality should be based on genuine interest to be a citizen of the country, first and foremost. Representing it should be secondary. Or incidental. But now strangers represent a country they were neither born in nor raised at. They can’t even speak the language or sing the national anthem. Even Southeast Asian countries have learned the trade, literally and figuratively. Cambodia suddenly became a regional basketball threat owing to its naturalized players. The Philippines dominated basketball in the region for so long. But in recent years heritage and naturalized players dominated its national team.

Some of these imported players are good, but not good enough to carry their country’s flag in amateur sports, nor be drafted to their professional league. Next in line in their country, until they found no lines in smaller countries hungry for bigger things. That small country includes the Philippines, obsessed with a sport designed for the huge, the tall and the hefty. Why, Nick Joaquin reportedly said, the Filipino choice of basketball – a game for giants – is a classic example of our heritage of smallness trying to conquer the heritage of greatness. There. Case closed.

Not yet though, if we factor the color of money. No place in their country of origin, these imports find a space elsewhere to continue their original sin. Welcome to countries willing to pay. Not necessarily rich, but willing to spend appear rich, in sports. Not necessarily poor either, just plundered. Like ours. Imagine if Brunei, one of the richest countries in the world, buys athletes and make them their own? It will be a massive tectonic shift in regional and continental sports landscape. Along the way, representation warps authenticity and blurs originality, all in the name of money.