Sport citizenship is located in the matrix of the lex sportiva, at the intersection of consumerism and loyalty, identity and patriotism, and state (public) and personal (private). Changing of sport (Olympic) citizenship (by opting for one of the existing dual citizenships or acquiring an alternative citizenship) to continue a sports career under the “flag” of another state is a dilemma and a problem-phenomenon for modern society, as it generates moral and ethical discussions about cap-tied citizenship, compromising citizenship as a permanent in space-and-time and effective link nexus between a person and the state. The purpose of this article is to analyze the legal prerequisites for a person to change sport (Olympic) citizenship to pursue a personal sports career (to participate in the Olympic Games and other international sports competitions), in particular, based on the main decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and its ad hoc divisions, headquartered in the capitals of the Olympic Games. It is also worth comparing the common and distinctive features of this procedure for dual citizens from birth, who acquired both citizenships simultaneously following the filiation, cumulatively based on jus sanguinis and jus soli, and opted for one of them as a “functional” citizenship, and persons who acquired an alternative citizenship after birth and became persons with multiple citizenship, acting one-by-one for both states of citizenship. Changing sport nationality might have various reasons (escape from war and the introduction of sanctions (impossibility/ban on competing under the “flag” of one’s home country), systematic bullying by the sports federations executioves, high competition, marriage to a foreigner, out-of-country residence), as well as the legal procedure for acquiring alternative citizenship (via naturalization (ordinary or discretionary), option or transfer).

Authored books

1. Bosniak L, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (Princeton University Press 2006).

2. Sofinska I, Filosofs’ko-pravova visija doktryny hromadjanstwa (Kamenjar 2018) (in Ukrainian).

Edited books

3. Guschwan M (ed), Sport and Citizenship (1st Edition, Routledge 2015) https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315708485.

4. Spiro P J, ‘The end of Olympic nationality’, In: Jenkins F, Nolan M, Rubenstein K, eds. Allegiance and Identity in a Globalised World. Connecting International Law with Public Law (Cambridge University Press, 2014) 478–496. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139696654.029.

Journal articles

5. Bloemraad I, ‘Theorising the power of citizenship as claims-making’ [2018] 44(1) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 4–26 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1396108. 

6. Jansen J, ‘Nationality swapping in the Olympic Games 1978–2017: A supervised machine learning approach to analysing discourses of citizenship and nationhood’ [2019] 54(8) International Review for the Sociology of Sport 971–988 https://doi. org/10.1177/1012690218773969.

7. Jansen J, ‘Replication Data for: Nationality Swapping in the Olympic Field 1948–2016’ [2018] Harvard Dataverse, V1 https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WRDL17.

8. Jansen J, Oonk G, Engbersen G, ‘Nationality swapping in the Olympic field: towards the marketization of citizenship?’ [2018] 22(5) Citizenship Studies 523–539 https://doi.org/10.1 080/13621025.2018.1477921.

9. Jansen J, Skey M, ‘Who Can Represent the Nation? Elite Athletes, Global Mega Events and the Contested Boundaries of National Belonging’ [2020] 54(6) Sociology 1194–1211 https:// doi.org/10.1177/0038038520931997.

10. Joppke C, ‘Transformation of Citizenship: Status, Rights, Identity’ [2007] 11(1) Citizenship Studies 37–48. https://doi:10.1080/13621020601099831.

11. McGarry K, ‘Sport in Transition: Emerging Trends on Culture Change in the Anthropology of Sport’ [2010] 39(3) Reviews in Anthropology 151–172 https://doi.org/10.1080/00938157. 2010.502216.

12. Oonk G, ‘Sport and nationality: towards thick and thin forms of citizenship’ [2022] 24(3) National Identities 197–215 https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2020.1815421.

13. Shachar A, ‘Picking Winners: Olympic Citizenship and the Global Race for Talent’ [2011] 120(8) The Yale Law Journal 2088–2139.

14. Shachar A, ‘The Race for Talent: Highly Skilled Migrants and Competitive Immigration Regimes’ [2006] 81(1) New York University Law Review 148–206.

15. Shachar A, R Hirschl, ‘On Citizenship, States, and Markets’ [2014] 22(2) Journal of Political Philosophy 231–257 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12034.

16. Spiro P J, ‘Problematizing Olympic Nationality’ [2021] 114 American Journal of International Law Unbound 374–379 https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2020.73.

17. Vink M P, de Groot G-R, ‘Citizenship Attribution in Western Europe: International Framework and Domestic Trends’ [2010] 36(5) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 713–734 https://doi.org/10.1080/13691831003763914.

18. Wollmann A S, Vonk O, de Groot G-R, ‘Towards a Sporting Nationality?’ [2015] 22(2) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 305–321 https://doi. org/10.1177/1023263X1502200208.

19. Zhang X, Dumitrica D, Jansz J, ‘Naturalised athletes as national icons: official and netizen narratives of Eileen Gu in the 2022 Winter Olympics’ [2026] 29(2) Sport in Society 255–275 https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2024.2438000.

Newspaper articles

20. García T, Álvarez Del Vayo M, Arato L, ‘Trading flags for medals: Inside the Olympic naturalisation market’ (European Data Journalism Network, November 3, 2024) (accessed 29.06.2026).

21. Harding J, ‘Nationality at the Olympics: Does it matter?’ (Deutsche Welle, February 19, 2026) (accessed 29.06.2026).

Websites

22. IOC Executive Board approves seven athletes’ changes of sporting nationality for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games (accessed 29.06.2026).