Paul Rouse

Yeah.

Because their parents are Italian.

I think that Tony Cascarino's autobiography made that claim, but I think it subsequently was proven afterwards that he did actually have the entitlement to a passport.

Now, it is absolutely true that the Irish FA, Football Association of Ireland, courted

Yeah.

Foreigners.

Not foreigners, but people born to the diaspora who may not have had a deep connection.

A creative attitude to genealogy, I think.

So I'm not going to be defensive on this because there is not a country in the world that doesn't do this.

Look at the English cricket and rugby teams that have produced people over the last while.

I wish Tom was here to defend what happened in cricket.

All right.

So they do a range of different things.

If we look, first of all, at the purpose of it, of the competition.

So Giorgio Vaccaro, who is the head of the Football Federation in Italy, said that the World Cup was a chance to show the organisational efficiency of fascist sport in general and football in particular.

And he talked about this opportunity to display also Italian manhood on the world stage.

So the Italian newspapers who covered it, they put it on their front pages because they were instructed to do so by the propaganda ministry and the Italian diplomatic corps went into overdrive around the world trying to get newspapers around the world to do the same.

Secondly, new stadiums were constructed.

I lived in Florence for a couple of years, about 25 years ago, and played soccer on the fields right beside, in Coverciano and beside the Stadio Cominale in Fiorentina.

And that stadium still stood, but that was built at the time.