Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers last Tuesday granted Spanish nationality by letter of nature to two young elite athletes, the footballer Dean Huijsen, of Dutch origin, and the wrestler Mohammad Mottaghinia, of Iranian origin, as published this past Wednesday in the Official Gazette of the State (BOE).
Dean Huijsen, born in Amsterdam 18 years ago, began living in Marbella at the age of five. He began playing football in the youth ranks of Málaga and is currently part of AS Roma, in the Italian League. Thanks to his nationalization, he will be able to play in the Spanish soccer team, in which, curiously, he could share a dressing room and position (all three are central defenders) with two other nationalized players, the Frenchmen Aymeric Laporte and Robin Le Normand. The other nationalized by nature is Mohammad Mottaghinia, a great Iranian wrestling promise who has already participated in some competitions as a Spaniard.
Nationality by letter of nature is a much faster process than the usual channels and allows people to be granted nationality exceptionally quickly in the public interest.
A good part of these concessions usually benefit athletes, in the case of Spain through the Higher Sports Council. According to data collected by the CIVIO portal, athletes represent more than a fifth of the more than 500 people who have received this benefit in Spain in the last thirty years (117, not counting the last ones), followed by political exiles (including the more than one hundred Nicaraguan dissidents stripped of their citizenship by Daniel Ortega’s regime and nationalized throughout 2023 and early 2024), cultural professionals, politicians and diplomats, victims of terrorism and businessmen.
