JACK Charlton must have been proud on Saturday night.

As Portugal lined up to face Turkey in a Euro 2008 Group A match, no fewer than six of the 22 players starting the match were representing the nationality of their convenience rather that of their birth or upbringing.

Jack was the pioneer of this very strange definition of international football.

If you weren't good enough to get in the England team but your long lost great grandfather had once visited the Guinness brewery on a day trip, all you had to do was get yourself down to Lansdowne Road.

So, as we watched Portuguese flair take on Turkish exuberance in Geneva on Saturday, we also got three Brazilians, a Frenchman, a German and an Englishman for our money.

Deco and Pepe moved to Portugal from Brazil to play club football and qualified by residence.

It was the same with Marco Aurelio, who became Mehmet Aurelio when he realised his international future was with Turkey after years with Fenerbahce.

Mevlut was born in France, grew up there and plays his football there but qualifies for Turkey through family heritage, as does German-born Hamit Altintop.

Colin Kazim-Richards at least moved to Turkish club Fenerbahce last summer but the English born and bred winger - now known as Kazim Kazim - has spent most of his career in Bury and Brighton rather than by the Bosphorus.

Two more of Portugal's team were born outside the country - Jose Bosingwa in DR Congo and Petit in France - while Turkey's Hakan Balta was born in Berlin.

They moved countries for personal reasons, though, long before they became successful footballers.

For the others, their choice of nationality is open to question.

Would they have chosen the same nationalities had the countries of their birth come calling first?

Only they know the answer to that but the lines of international sport are becoming ever more blurred.

Who draws up regulations that allow New Zealand rugby league international Lesley Vainikolo to line up for the England rugby union team and Samoan rugby union international Maurie Fa'asavalu to appear for the Great Britain rugby league side?

Sportsmen should be made to declare their nationality as soon as they turn professional, then maybe such debate can be avoided.

* Ian Wright was right when he pointed out that the BBC's football coverage is tired and outdated.

The dry match analysis of Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer is only bearable because of the frequency with which Martin O'Neill interrupts with his amusingly rambling monologues. Aston Villa team meetings must be a treat.

ITV break up their coverage with features from underrated interviewers Gabriel Clarke and Ned Boulting, while David Evening All' Pleat won't let a football match get in the way of the real pressing matters.

Midway through Saturday's enthralling Portugal match, Pleat chirped up with: 'Has Scolari lost weight, Clive?' Last month in Moscow, with two minutes remaining in the biggest match ever played between two English sides, Pleat tutted about the fact that Avram Grant wasn't wearing a tie.

Maybe that was where it all went wrong for Avram.

Chelsea wanted a manager that wore a tie rather than played for one.