Burnley’s Ashley Barnes was born in Bath, South West of England, but played for Austria U20s once in 2008.
The 29-year-old has an Austrian grandmother and that qualifies him to represent the Central European nation, but Sky Sports reported earlier this year the striker could not been called up because he does not hold an Austrian passport.
Peter Schöttel was appointed as the national’s team sporting director and during an interview with the APA, he explained what’s stopping the former Brighton & Hove Albion man from representing Austria at the international stage.
“We got the player all the required documents, now everything is up to the authorities. We can well imagine him playing for the Austrian national team, and so does he,” he was quoted as saying by Spox.
This is a strange situation where a player has to wait until he gets clearance from the relevant authorities in order to fulfil his dream of representing the country.
Austria head coach Franco Foda publicly expressed his desire to include the Clarets player in the national team after personally watching him in action.
The attacker has been restricted to less than 300 minutes in the Premier League across 11 appearances which includes two starts and scoring two goals in the process.
