Sometimes you just need a little patience.
TO this link you can find the eligibility criteria reported by the International Board in 2003. One quickly realizes that not only the criterion of the grandfather’s birth was already established, but that at that time it was specified that nationality and passport did not count. See point 2 of the guidelines explaining Regulation 8: “Citizenship of a country and / or possession of a particular passport are not in themselves decisive in determining which Federation the player is eligible for. This is determined only in accordance with the International Board’s eligibility criteria ”.
Below instead an article of March 14, 2000 by Espn Scrum is reported, in which it is told how the Australian federation pushes for the change of the rules on eligibility, especially those that allow a player to represent the country in which the grandfather was born . This means that the rule was already established then. The change requested by the Australians had to be restrictive, they did not want to broaden the terms: they proposed that you could only play for the country in which the father was born, not the grandfather. The proposal was rejected, but it can be said with certainty that until 2003 the rule did not change.
Given that it has been known at least since 2009 that Castrogiovanni’s relative born in Italy was his great-grandfather, and not his grandfather, and that then no one lifted a finger; given that today the finger has been raised because there are those who have a direct interest not so much in discrediting Italy, but in demonstrating that World Rugby has its flaws in the management of the issue; given that nothing will change than what Martin Castrogiovanni has given – a lot – to world rugby, even before the Italian one, it would be nice if someone at this point would clarify how this boy who arrived from Argentina in 2001, in 2002 could play with the Italian national team .