In the 1911 Copa del Rey, Real Sociedad withdrew in protest after their accusations that other teams, primarily Athletic Bilbao, were using ineligible foreign players, were rejected.[29] Athletic went on to win the trophy without using the disputed players, although they did use some from Atlético Madrid which at that time was a branch of the older Bilbao club.[30][31] This led to the Royal Spanish Football Federation introducing a rule for the next year's competition that all players must be Spanish citizens.[32] Athletic chose to maintain the approach of using only local Basque players even when the regulations were relaxed some years later, a tradition which has continued into the 21st century.[33][34] Real had a similar policy from the late 1960s, but it was dropped for foreign imports in 1989 when they signed the Republic of Ireland forward John Aldridge,[35][36][37] and for non-Basque Spanish players in 2002 with the transfer of Boris from Real Oviedo.[10][38]