FIFA Shoots Down Ailton's Plan to Switch Nationalities, Play for Qatar

VOA - Brazilian forward Ailton's plans to switch nationalities and play for Qatar may be shot down by football's (soccer's) world governing body, FIFA. 

The president of Germany's football federation, Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, said Friday, he met with FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi, and they agreed that switching passports to play for another country needed to be stopped. He said they see these kinds of moves as hurting the substance of national teams. 

Ailton is the Bundesliga's top scorer and is the latest and perhaps best known player Qatar plans to grant citizenship in hopes of turning the small Middle Eastern country into a 2006 World Cup team. A hefty bonus would come with the nationality switch. Borussia Dortmund midfielder Dede, another Brazilian who has blossomed into a top German league star, also has been approached by Qatar. 

The 30-year-old Ailton said he wants to play in the 2006 World Cup and feels he has no chance for a call-up to his homeland's national team, despite scoring 20 goals in 22 matches this season for league front-runner Werder Bremen. He is expected to go to Doha next week and says he will sign a contract. 

The German football president expects FIFA's executive committee to take action when it next meets May 17 in Paris, then possibly present a new regulation to the full congress, which meets three days later in the French capital.