Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 8:04 PM• Mart Oude Nijeweeme • Last update: 20:30

Vurnon Anita will continue his international career with Curaçao. The midfielder of RKC Waalwijk, who played for the Dutch national team three times in the past, has received a dispensation from FIFA, the Curaçao football association FFK announced on Thursday. It was the second time that Anita made an attempt to get the green light to play international matches on behalf of Curaçao.

The choice of Anita to play for the national team of Curaçao did not come completely out of the blue. In 2015, then national coach Patrick Kluivert also tried to entice the defensive midfielder into a switch. At the time, FIFA did not comply with this, which for a long time did not allow dispensation if a player had completed an official game for a country.

Anita made his debut in the Dutch national team on May 26, 2010, when he was trusted by the then national coach Bert van Marwijk in a friendly game with Mexico (2-1 win) in the left back position during the time that he was considered a fixed value at Ajax. In August 2010 he would also play against Ukraine (1-1). His third international match took a while and followed in 2012, when he played the full game in the European Championship qualifier against Finland (2-1 victory). With Curaçao, Anita hopes to help national coach Guus Hiddink with a World Cup ticket.

Anita is a regular at RKC this season, where he functions as an offensive midfielder. The former Ajax player signed a one-year contract in Waalwijk last summer and, as a former international, got his eyes on him together with Gregory van der Wiel. For Van der Wiel, who played 46 international matches on behalf of the the Dutch, the return to the Dutch fields has not yet been a success. The defender, who is struggling with panic attacks, has yet to make his debut.