TnT have qualified for their first WC finals, and are understandably looking at the possibility of exploiting the FIFA rule (introduced in 2002) which allows players to switch their national allegiance even if they've already played at a junior level for a different country. Previously, players had been allowed to play at schoolboy level for one country and then at international level for another, because schoolboy level is all about where you go to school rather than about what your nationality is (hence famous examples such as Ryan "English then Welsh" Giggs). But once you'd played at any level from a junior (U17, U19, U21) level upwards, your nationality was fixed as far as FIFA were concerned. The new ruling was introduced basically to help smaller countries and has been exploited a lot by African nations in the last few years.

Hoyte has represented England at U21 level, and any plans to switch his footballing nationality may be scuppered by a rider to the FIFA rule, which states that the change has to be made before the player reaches the age of 21 (Hoyte turned 21 back in November). Trinidad and Tobago coach Leo Beenhakker is going to give it a try though, and is going to approach FIFA with a formal request to be allowed to pick Hoyte for his squad, along with others such as West Ham's Bobby Zamora and JLloyd Samuel of Aston Villa.

Something rather crucial that's not mentioned in the article, is whether or not Justin Hoyte himself has been asked about this.

If it is allowed, and Hoyte does decide to accept T&T's offer, he could find himself marking Freddie Ljungberg in his first competitive match at full international level, and facing former country England in his second.

Hoyte is on loaned at Sunderland this season, where he's been doing well enough for us to be absolutely gutted that he's not available to us in these times of defensive need (let's face it, it wouldn't be hard to be doing that well, but he's doing been doing even better...). Hoyte's potential is such that it wouldn't be surprising if he felt that his chances of future full England caps were high enough for the TnT option not to be all that attractive. Perhaps (and assuming here, perhaps unrealistically, that FIFA are sympathetic to the request to bend the rules) it'll come down to the question of how close he feels to his Caribbean roots.