Athletic Bilbao signing policy

[3][4][29] In 2015, Iñaki Williams (Born in Bilbao to Ghanaian immigrant parents, who reached Spain by crossing the Sahara on foot and jumping the Melilla border fence),[44][45][46] became Athletic's first black goalscorer.

[49] Gorka Luariz, a forward of mixed ethnicity capped by Equatorial Guinea in 2018, spent time in Athletic's youth system despite being born in Zaragoza as his upbringing was almost entirely in the Basque region.

[51][52] Former academy trainee Yuri Berchiche, who rejoined Athletic in the summer of 2018 as one of the club's most expensive signings,[6][53] has an Algerian father but showed no interest in playing for their national team when the matter was put to him.

[54][55] By coincidence, Berchiche is from the same town – Zarautz, west of San Sebastián – as Álex Padilla, a goalkeeper of partial Mexican heritage and upbringing who had already played for that nation at Under-23 level before he made his first team debut in 2024.

[64] By 2024, the reserve teams contained several promising players of partial or full African origin including Adama Boiro, Junior Bita, Igor Oyono and Elijah Gift, while new signing Álvaro Djaló was in the main squad – cousin of Adu Ares, the winger joined for an initial €15 million fee (one of the club's biggest transfer outlays) from SC Braga of Portugal,[65] having developed there and with no immediately obvious Basque links due to being born in Madrid and of West African heritage; however, most of his childhood was spent in Bilbao.

[67] The club has also recruited players[68][69] from the French Northern Basque Country (a region of 300,000 where rugby union is the most popular sport)[70] with Bixente Lizarazu being the first French-Basque to play for the senior team in 1996.

[77] Hailing from Burgundy, he arrived at the San Sebastián club aged 14[78] but only to play football for their academy teams rather than for some other non-sporting reason, and has no connection to the French Basque Country other than attending school there after signing for Real.

In 1980 the club was believed to have given serious consideration to signing Iker Zubizarreta, a young Venezuelan of Basque heritage (his grandfather Félix played for Athletic in the 1910s) who had impressed at the football tournament at the 1980 Summer Olympics, but decided not to pursue it.

[82] In 2011, media sources claimed that Athletic had shown interest in young Mexican midfielder Jonathan Espericueta[83] but no such move materialised, and the player himself (who did later play in Spain with Villarreal B) stated that his Basque connection was as distant as a great-great-grandfather.

That is also true of Argentinian forward Gonzalo Higuaín[87] and Spaniards Benjamín Zarandona,[4][29] Kepa Blanco[88] and Jorge López,[7][89] all players with tenuous Basque links who were also said to have been considered as potential signings by the club's presidential candidates when Athletic were struggling on the field in the mid-2000s under the restrictions of the policy.

[90] In 2015 the Australian winger Tommy Oar (with Basque-born grandparents) was the subject of similar speculation,[91] and having been linked to the club at the start of his successful career, Higuain's name was mentioned in the media again 14 years later as he reached veteran status.

[93] But despite these examples of the rule being applied consistently, Mario Bermejo, a Cantabrian also with a Basque father but trained at Racing Santander, did sign for the club as a promising young player in 1996, which he later stated was smoothed by an Athletic director being an acquaintance of his uncle.

[7][15] But that was not always the case, as in the 1950s some talented players raised locally but with birthplaces elsewhere (Chus Pereda, Miguel Jones,[3] José Eulogio Gárate and the elder brother of Manuel Sarabia)[104] were not signed as would have been expected in later eras.

However, despite having invited Ochoa to join, in October 2017 it was announced that the club's youth training camp in Oion (a village in Álava, but just a few miles from Logroño) which was opened in order to create a loophole in their own rule and 'Basque-train' youngsters living close to but not within the region, would no longer accept players who "did not fit the Athletic philosophy", effectively excluding around 150 Riojan youngsters of various ages from the system and leaving only around ten Basques across the squads, indicating a change in approach to youth recruitment among the club hierarchy.

[153][154] A year later, the Bosnian international forward Kenan Kodro joined the club, but his Basque credentials beyond his name (born and raised in San Sebastián and a Real Sociedad youth product) were very robust.

Due to the shorter history of the women's branch there are fewer examples of Athletic players with partial connections to the territory, examples being the internationals Damaris Egurrola (born in Florida, raised in Gernika, later declared for the Netherlands)[157][158] and Lucía García (born in Barakaldo's specialist maternity hospital as one of a set of quadruplets, raised in Asturias)[159] as well as American goalkeeper Maite Zabala (from the large Basque community in Boise, Idaho) who did not make a competitive appearance.

[160][161] Mention should also be given to Manuela Lareo, of partial Afro-Caribbean (Dominican Republic) descent,[162] who joined the club in 2010 and made her debut later that year,[163] preceding Jonás Ramalho's first appearance for the men's team.