In most cases, a national sports team represents a single sovereign state, though there are some exceptions to the rule.
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12 Facts About National team
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The Ireland national rugby union team represents the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in rugby union, and all-island teams are fielded in a number of other sports.
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3.
Popularity of a national team depends on the popularity of the sport in that country.
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4.
The Papua New Guinea national rugby league team is extremely popular because the sport is popular in the country, even though the highest competition it competes in - the Rugby League World Cup - is not.
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5.
Popularity of the international competition that a team participates in has the biggest influence on the popularity of national sports team.
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6.
The most popular multi-sport international competitions that include team sports include the Olympic Games, Asian Games are relatively open for participation.
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7.
Popularity of a national team can be due to a team being successful even if the sport itself is not popular in a country.
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8.
In many countries, the national team is the highest level of play available and as a result, it is often most popular with fans and spectators from that country.
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9.
Under FIFA regulations, a player primarily qualifies for a national team by "holding a permanent nationality that is not dependent on residence in a certain country"—i.
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10.
The only use of the grandparent rule is to determine a player's eligibility to represent the national team of a country's dependent territory, with two notable examples being those of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, both US insular areas with their own national federations, and whose native-born residents are US citizens by birth.
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11.
FIBA mandates that in official competitions, no national team can have more than one player on its roster who acquired citizenship by any means after reaching age 16.
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12.
Players can only be tied to a given national team by being named to that country's squad, either in the first XI or as a substitute, in an official ICC match—defined as a Test, ODI, or Twenty20 match that involves a national federation's senior side.
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