[2] Players were permitted to change their elected nation once every two years or at the end of the next Rugby League World Cup, whichever was sooner.
Players are free to change between their elected nations without a stand-down period or similar[4] (this rule was altered in February 2020).
He was banned from competing in the rest of the tournament and New Zealand was stripped of the points gained for their win against Great Britain.
[14] In 2012, Adrian Morley revealed in his autobiography Moz that his brother Chris had lied about their grandmother's origins in order to represent Wales, which he did on 13 occasions between 1996 and 2006.
[17][18] The RLIF commented in November 2012: "The procedures surrounding international eligibility are no longer the same as when Chris Morley was playing, and there have been regular reviews of the sanctioning process across all levels of the game.
"[16] New Zealand and Cook Islands representative Marata Niukore was granted an exemption by the IRL to appear at the 2021 Rugby League World Cup (which was held in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) after inadvertently making himself ineligible for both nations.
[23] IRL development officer Tas Baitieri stated in September 2016 that the tier system was designed to produce higher quality and more balanced international tournaments.
The current eligibility system has also been praised for allowing members of diaspora populations to represent their multiple national identities.