It’s understandable that leagues will have registration rules to ensure that clubs don’t simply fill their squads with foreign talent, but it can have unintended consequences.
La Liga only allow teams to register three non EU players in their squads each season, and Marca have shown that this could have a huge impact on Kubo at Real Madrid.
They point out that South American players can apply for EU citizenship easily so this issue doesn’t usually crop up, but Japanese law doesn’t usually allow dual citizenship.
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The problem for Kubo is that he might be good enough to earn a space in the Real squad soon, but it’s unlikely that they will use one of those valuable spots on him.
As a result, they point out that Kubo might have to make the decision between keeping his Japanese passport or giving it up in an attempt to break into the Real Madrid team.
It’s not clear if that would then stop him playing for the national team or what issues it could cause him in later life if he wants to go back and live in Japan either.
For now it looks like he’ll be going out on loan no matter what happens, but this is a huge decision for the youngster to make.