Bayern Munich teenager Ryan Johansson has not given up hope of representing the Republic of Ireland.

The Irish Independent is reporting that the family of the 18-year-old has sought legal advice in a bid to keep his dream alive.

FIFA rejected an initial appeal to their decision to block Johansson's switch from Luxembourg to Ireland.

The young midfielder, who has a Swedish father and Irish mother, grew up in Luxembourg.

Johansson's preference is to play for Ireland but he played competitively for Luxembourg at underage level.

He was led to believe that he could still switch allegiance given it was not at senior level and he even played two friendlies for Tom Mohan's under 19 side last year.

However, FIFA has blocked Johansson from making a full switch because he played for Luxembourg before formally going through the process of securing Irish citizenship.

FIFA rules say that a player who can switch from one country to another provided that "at the time of his first full or partial appearance for his Current Association, he already had the nationality of the representative team for which he wishes to play".

Johansson had Luxembourg and Swedish passports at that time but not an Irish one.