According to the latest news, the Chinese Football Association is studying the naturalization of Zhou Dingyang, the captain of Chengdu Rongcheng and a player from Taiwan, China, which seems to mean that this powerful midfielder represents the Chinese men's football team and is beginning to see the light of day. However, at present, there is a huge obstacle that is difficult to solve in Zhou Dingyang's naturalization work, and the Football Association wants Zhou Dingyang to wear the jersey of the national football team, and the only hope is to hope that FIFA can be as "accommodating" as possible.
In the last two years, FIFA's naturalized player process has undergone some changes, as long as a player does not make more than 3 appearances for the original team, he only needs to meet certain conditions to become a naturalized player, so theoretically, Zhou Dingyang has the possibility of becoming a Chinese men's football player, because he only played one Asian Cup qualifier for Chinese Taiwan in 2017.
The problem, however, is that according to FIFA regulations, a player must also acquire the nationality of the new association country when he or she represents his or her home team, in order to become a naturalized player of the new association country. In other words, when Zhou Dingyang represents Taiwan, China, he must also have Chinese nationality in order to obtain the qualification to naturalize and join the national football team. According to us, when Zhou Dingyang got a Taiwanese passport in 2017, he naturally became a Chinese and could issue him a certificate of Chinese nationality.
However, it is almost impossible to convince FIFA with this reason, because in FIFA's naturalized player recognition process, this kind of "automatic" acquisition of B status after obtaining A status has never happened, and the other party needs to focus on the identity registration information from 2017, rather than a temporary certificate.
On the other hand, if the national football team wants to naturalize Zhou Dingyang in the way of "going off the rails", it is also facing obstruction from the outside. As early as 2020, when Guangzhou Evergrande wanted to obtain naturalization status for Jiang Guangtai and Goulart, FIFA received protests from some AFC member countries, because they believed that the naturalization of the two players did not meet the requirements of the charter. In the end, FIFA only agreed with Jiang Guangtai and rejected Goulart. This time, the Football Association wants to naturalize Zhou Dingyang in a more "out-of-the-way" way than a few years ago, and the resistance will only be greater.