England squad: Gareth Southgate jumps to defence of Declan Rice after 'easy criticism'

The decision to switch from the Republic of Ireland football to England saw Rice face some fierce criticism, especially from former Irish internationals

Gareth Southgate has hit back at the “easy criticism” Declan Rice has faced after the three-cap Republic of Ireland international switched his allegiance to play for England.

Rice was picked for Southgate’s England squad on Wednesday and will make his debut against Czech Republic or Montenegro later this month. Just this weekend he was named as Ireland’s Young Player of the Year for 2018, in recognition of his performances for Martin O’Neill’s side before he switched to England.

The decision to switch from the Republic of Ireland football to England saw Rice face some fierce criticism, especially from former Irish internationals. Rice announced his change last month with a lengthy statement on social media in which he said considered himself of “mixed nationality”, both a “proud Englishman” but also “proud of my family’s Irish heritage”.

Kevin Kilbane, like Rice, was born in England to an Irish family, and went on to win 110 caps for the Republic of Ireland. Kilbane has criticised Rice for switching, saying that Rice should never have played for the Republic in the first place and that doing so was a “slap in the face” to young Irish players.

Andy Townsend, another English-born Republic of Ireland international, said that Rice should not have switched, and that doing so “made a mockery of international football.”

But Southgate, speaking at his press conference at St George’s Park on Wednesday afternoon, jumped to Rice’s defence, praising him for speaking “really eloquently” about the nature of being dual nationality. And he responded to Rice’s critics, pointing to the fact that some of Rice’s critics themselves “did not play for the country of their birth”, a likely reference to Kilbane and Townsend.

“I think it’s easy to be vocal when you haven’t walked in those shoes,” Southgate said. “I think [Rice] spoke really eloquently about being somebody of dual heritage and what that means.”

Southgate pointed to an article Eni Aluko wrote in The Guardian last month, in which the former England international wrote that there “needs to be a much more mature attitude in football towards players who have dual nationality”.

“I saw a really good article that Eni Aluko wrote on that as well,” Southgate said. “For me it was easy, I could only play for England, so there was no question in my mind. And for lots of people that commented [on Rice], that was the same. There were others who have commented despite the fact that they didn’t play for the country of their birth, so they have benefited from some of the rules that are there.”

Southgate said that he had warned Rice from when he first started talking to him, before the World Cup, that he would face public hostility if he chose to switch allegiance. “It was really important that he had the space, because I knew that backlash would come,” Southgate said. “Maybe not everyone thought that might happen. But I knew for sure that that would happen. So he needed to be very certain in his mind that he was making the right decision and for the reasons that he’s talked about.”

The midfielder switched his allegiance to England last month (Getty)

Southgate also argued that Rice had no case to answer in terms of his right to play for England: Rice was born here, grew up in Fulham and played at the Chelsea academy before moving to West Ham. “Fundamentally, he’s a boy that was born in London and educated at an English academy,” Southgate said. “So I don’t think there’s too much that he needs to defend. But I understand the fact that there was a senior cap with Ireland, so that was always going to make it more complicated. But I think we’ve got to look at his age. Normally a player of that age making this decision would be able to do it in a much lower-profile case.”

Trends in migration means that Southgate expects there to be more cases like Rice, or like Wilfried Zaha, who was called up for England before switching to play for Cote d’Ivoire. England have more and more dual-nationality youth internationals, and there will be more Rices and more Zahas in the future.

“This is going to be increasingly part of the landscape because families are more transient,” Southgate said. “People will move countries because of family work. There are over 50 per cent of our younger teams that will have dual heritage or more, and that is just the nature of the world. It’s very much the case in other national sports, for example, our rugby team, our cricket team. The world is changing.”