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Infantino, citizenship and the players Lebanon cannot pick
Lebanon has long drawn on its global diaspora to strengthen its national teams. But a century-old nationality law still prevents Lebanese women from passing citizenship to their children on equal terms with men - leaving more than 20 potential internationals unable to represent the Cedars.
“I love Lebanon, half of me is Lebanese.”
These were among FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s sentiments when Lebanese President Joseph Aoun granted him citizenship in November 2025.
Infantino, whose wife Lina al-Ashqar is Lebanese, has long been vocal about his love for the Middle Eastern nation.
Yet despite his flattering words, for those who are quite literally half Lebanese – the children of Lebanese women and foreign men – the country’s nationality law does not afford them the same automatic right to citizenship enjoyed by children of Lebanese fathers.
The distinction is rooted in Article 1 of Decree No. 15 on Lebanese Nationality, issued under French Mandate rule on 19 January 1925. It states that a person born to a Lebanese father is considered Lebanese, while offering no equivalent provision for a child born to a Lebanese mother and foreign father.
For Lebanese football, the consequences are more than theoretical.
Ahmmed Choker, a Sweden-based Lebanese football scout, knows all too well how the country’s maternal citizenship restrictions affect player recruitment.
“We would make two full squads,” he said of the number of footballers with maternal Lebanese heritage who have enquired about representing their ancestral homeland.
“More than twenty players but due to this law [Decree No. 15], they cannot play for the national team.”
For a nation that has regularly looked towards its vast diaspora – a group numbering anywhere between eight and 18 millions worldwide – to strengthen its national teams, it is a striking contradiction.
A century-old inequality
Decree No. 15 remains the foundation of Lebanese nationality law more than a century after it was introduced.
While the decree underwent minor amendments in 1934 and 1939, its one substantial change came 1960.
The 1960 amendments altered provisions concerning marriage and nationality, including allowing Lebanese women who marry foreign men to retain their nationality – which was not previously the case.
They did not, however, provide Lebanese women with the same right as men to automatically confer nationality upon their children.
A 2009 field study by Dr. Fahima Charaffedine, as part of the joint initiative between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Lebanese Women’s Rights and Nationality Project, found that between 1994 and 2008, there were around 18,000 marriages between Lebanese women and foreign men.
As a result of these unions, an estimated 41,400 children were affected by Lebanon’s nationality law.
The issue is far from unique to Lebanon. A June 2026 report from The European Network on Statelessness details that 45 countries or one out of four do not have equal nationality laws for female citizens, while up to ten countries in the Arab world prohibit the transferal of nationality through the maternal line, either completely or with constraints.
There have been repeated, and notable, attempts to further amend Lebanon’s law in recent years.
In September 2025, Lebanese MP Cynthia Zarazir and Halima El Kaakour submitted a proposed amendment to Article 1, arguing that the issue was “a matter of fundamental human rights” and should be treated by parliament as a social and humanitarian priority.
Lina Abou Habib, Director of the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut, launched the Arab Women’s Right to Nationality Campaign in 2001.
“This is not the first time that the president has used his prerogative to grant nationality,” she told The Asian Game.
“We have seen previous abuses en masse of this prerogative and much has been written about this. Certainly when I was part of the campaign, we highlighted, for instance, using the decree to grant Lebanese nationality without any excuse of having a mother, a wife or a cousin being Lebanese.”
“In the case of the FIFA President the reason that was evoked was that his wife is Lebanese, which is fine, but so is the case of thousands of women under this,” she said of Infantino.
“And what makes him special aside from being wealthy and powerful? Basically, that’s it.
“This was not just a faux pas. The problem is that this is legally possible, however it’s ethically wrong. In doing this you are undermining the thousands of Lebanese who have non-Lebanese spouses and are in the same situation except they are not powerful or famous.”
Abou Habib insists that legislation remains at the heart of the issue.
“The fact that you have this law allows these abuses. Had you had a clear law, an egalitarian law, a law that assumes the same conditionality for anyone marrying a non-national and wanting to exercise their rights to confer nationality, had you had a law that goes by blood because our law is considered by blood, the patriarchy and the misogyny is that only one blood is considered real blood.”
The players Lebanon cannot pick
The issue has a direct impact on international football. FIFA’s eligibility rules require a player to hold the nationality of the country they wish to represent.
Lebanon’s nationality system is predominantly based on Jure Sanguinis, or right by blood, that determines that an individual is entitled to nationality so long as they can prove an unbroken male paternal line, even extending to a paternal grandfather.
A child born to a Lebanese father automatically acquires Lebanese nationality; a child born to a Lebanese mother and foreign father does not enjoy the same right.
At present, Lebanon is one of nine Arab countries that allows dual citizenship, allowing its diaspora to maintain more than one passport. Due to its sheer size and Jure Sanguinis, Lebanon’s diaspora has historically served as the ace up their sleeve when recruiting footballers to play for their national teams.
Brothers Felix Michel Melki and Alexander Michel Melki are among the more prominent examples. Born in Sweden, both acquired Lebanese nationality through their paternal grandfather before going on to represent the Cedars internationally.
But the same opportunity is not automatically afforded to footballers whose Lebanese connection runs through their mother.
That is the pool Choker says Lebanon is missing.
Besides the nationality law itself, he believes FIFA’s requirement for players to establish their nationality creates an unavoidable barrier for those with maternal Lebanese roots.
“FIFA is the main course and the main organisation for football federations, for all the associations,” he explained.
“They need to be the best example and if Mr. Infantino could get the Lebanese passport this easily, this means that he should also understand that there are players with dual nationalities that would also be able to play if FIFA could do some changing of the rules to help these players play for their mother’s national team.”
In reality, FIFA cannot itself grant those players Lebanese nationality. That remains a matter for Lebanese law.
But Choker’s frustration highlights the unusual intersection created by Infantino’s naturalisation: the president of world football was able to become Lebanese through an exceptional state process while footballers with a Lebanese mother remain unable to derive the same nationality automatically through her.
As Zarazir and El Kaakour’s latest proposal remains unpassed, that distinction continues to affect thousands of Lebanese families – including footballers who might otherwise be able to pull on the national team shirt.
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