Greenland excerpt

Two excerpts from Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot have now been been published online.

A section from the chapter on Greenland has recently been published on InBedWithMaradona.com, while another excerpt on football in the Northern Cyprus can be read at PlayTheGame.org.

Kosovo update

UEFA’s executive committee will discuss Kosovo’s application to play international friendlies at a meeting between January 25-25.

Earlier this year, FIFA’s own ExCo rejected yet another application from the Football Federation of Kosovo to play international friendlies, leaving the FFK in international limbo as the country has not yet secured the official recognition from the United Nations that is needed to secure membership of the world body.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has since written to the president of the FFK, Fadil Vokrri, to explain that Kosovo’s attempt to play international friendlies would be discussed at the world body’s meeting in Tokyo last week.

Although a decision was again deferred by FIFA in Tokyo, Blatter has now asked UEFA to consider the application.

The FFK needs to join the European body before then going on to try for FIFA membership but UEFA president Michel Platini has consistently stated that only when Kosovo secures UN recognition will membership be allowed.

Zanzibar's season ends?

Defeat in the quarter-finals of the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) Cup leaves most of Zanzibar’s footballers with little to look forward to over the rest of this season.

Zanzibar qualified for the quarter-finals as the best third-placed team in group B after losing 2-1 to Uganda, drawing 0-0 with Burundi and crushing Somalia 3-0 and were drawing 1-1 with Rwanda in the quarter-finals until a goal two minutes from time by Meddie Kagere ended their CECAFA hopes.

The handful of Zanzibar players in the Tanzania squad for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers can look forward to qualifiers with Ivory Coast, Gambia and Morocco after the Taifa Stars squeaked past Chad in the pre-qualifiers.

For those Zanzibar players heading back from Tanzania across Dar es Salaam Bay there international schedule is far less certain.

The Zanzibar Football Association was formed in 1925 and the African island regularly played internationals but since joining with Tanganyika to form Tanzania half a century ago, the ZFA has been side-lined. In 1964, the Tanzania Football Federation joined FIFA and ever since the ZFA have been left feeding off whatever scraps the TFF is willing to hand out.

The situation is so bad that in 2002, Zanzibar broke away from the TFF and tried to join FIFA. In 2005, the application failed without the world body even hearing from anyone at the ZFA in person. After being snubbed by FIFA, the ZFA re-joined the TFF but the situation continued to deteriorate.

“It’s true that they are very badly treated by the TFF,” says Stewart Hall, a former manager of Zanzibar’s national side, who returned briefly this year only to depart just before the CECAFA Cup and be replaced by the Egyptian Abdelfatah Abbas.

Hall, who also coached the youth side at Birmingham City and the St Vincent and the Grenadines national side, adds: “The main problem with the national team is the lack of sponsorship, which means they struggle to play games at any level. People have tried to attract [sponsorship] but [have] failed miserably.”

This summer, members of parliament from Zanzibar brought up the issue in Tanzania’s parliament, asking where was the ZFA’s share of the U$D 250,000 a year that the TFF receives for football in both places from the world body’s financial assistance programme.

With no sign of any resolution, the ZFA tried to join FIFA again this year. FIFA guidance on new members in 2010 produced three categories from independent countries to non-independent territories and politically sensitive cases. Zanzibar was categorised as a non-independent country and not a priority in terms of help.

Yet again, Zanzibar were rebuffed. “As Zanzibar does not fulfil the basic condition of being a country recognized by the international community they were informed on 21 June 2011 that their request had been rejected accordingly,” explains FIFA.

“The FIFA proposal was I think led by government but there was upcoming elections in politics and in the ZFA so both parties were trying to gain popularity,” adds Hall. For Ally Saleh, a Zanzibar-based football agent who helped draw up the second application to FIFA, the world body’s rejection smacks of double standards.

He explains: “It is very important for FIFA to understand the internal setup in Tanzania where the Union is governed by what is known as Articles of Union which recognises only 22 items specifically approved by the Constitution to be Union Matters. Sport is not one of them as such each side deals with it separately and with full autonomy.”

All this leaves Zanzibar’s players facing an iniquitous future. Zanzibar’s clubs can take part in the qualifiers for the African Champions League but these ventures are often short-lived. The five-tier club game, whose attendances have been hammered by satellite screening of the English Premier League, is low standard. For aspiring footballers in Zanzibar there is little to provide motivation.

“The football in the Zanzibar Premier League is nothing better than semi-pro with the players getting the same salary as a waiter in one of the many beach resorts,” says Hall. “The league [was] completed without a sponsor; no-one will invest because of previous discrepancies.” With a population of more than one million people, there are also plenty of footballers and, according to Stewart Hall, plenty of ability but to pursue a meaningful professional career involves relocating to Tanzania and that is not always easy.

Hall adds: “There is talent in the islands, the boys learn their football on beaches and awful pitches and therefore are technically competent. They are Muslim and therefore do not drink, smoke or chase women and are very easy to work with.

“The salaries in Tanzania are 3-4 times more than in Zanzibar [but] there is a big brother, little brother relationship between the two countries, and the mainland people generally look down on the islanders.”

Hall was only in charge of Zanzibar for half a dozen matches before leaving to work in Tanzania’s Vodacom Premier League for title chasing Azam FC, which is owned by a company from Zanzibar.

Since moving to Azam, Hall has signed eight of Zanzibar’s national side.

He explains: “The relationship between the Zanzibar players and Azam was totally formed by myself. I was looking for new players and the Zanzibaris I signed were considerably better than the players I released. It was in no way a club initiative, although the boss does look to help Zanzibari football when he has chance.”

Three of those players signed by Hall have gone on to play for Tanzania’s national side, while Abdi Khassim – another Zanzibari to make the Tanzanian side - has gone even further afield. Often known as Babi, Khassim is playing in the Vietnamese top flight for Dong Tam Long An. Khassim is Zanzibar’s captain but the struggling VDQG Eximbank side refused to release him for the 2011 CECAFA Cup. Had the ZFA been in FIFA, like all the other sides in the CECAFA Cup, then Zanzibar might have had some leverage. Instead, like their footballers they are left to swim against the tide.

Gibraltar update

Gibraltar's players celebrate on the pitch at the Victoria Stadium after beating England C

Gibraltar beat England C - a team of players from clubs outside the Football League - 3-1 last week.

An update on football in Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Football Association's appeal against its exclusion from UEFA is on the latest edition of BBC World Service's World Football show.

Guernsey & Jersey: neighbours but world's apart in football strategy

This article also appeared at InBedWithMaradona.com

Guernsey’s entry into the English football pyramid has produced some early success but don’t expect Jersey to try and emulate their Channel Island neighbours.

The first two home fixtures for the newly formed Guernsey FC (GFC) in Combined Counties Division One produced emphatic wins – 5-0 over Knaphill, 3-0 over Warlingham – with both games watched by nearly 1,500 fans at Footes Lane.

Although players with Football League experience such as Chris Tardiff and Ryan-Zico Black are playing for Guernsey, both are Channel Islanders and the side is very much an attempt to provide regular football for the island’s local players that is made possible by sponsorship from Sportingbet rumoured to be worth around £250,000.

Jersey have ambitious plans too, but these involve the island pursuing a higher grade of football not at club level but internationally. There are seven teams in Guernsey’s main competition, the FNB Priaulx League, but 19 clubs are affiliated to the Jersey Football Association (JFA), whose senior members believe that following their neighbour route into the mainland pyramid would fundamentally weaken their game at a grass-roots level. GFC is not the Guernsey Football Association but a new club; a misconception not helped by former GFA president Mark Le Tissier being briefly involved in both before leaving to focus on the new club side.

To pursue a similar plan in Jersey, members of the JFA would need to quit to form or new club, or an existing senior club, such as First Tower or Jersey Scottish, would need to join the English pyramid. So far, both options have been rejected. Instead, over the past five years the JFA has been pursuing a ‘meaningful’ games programme for their national side. Premier League reserve sides, such as Blackburn and Sunderland, have flown over for games, while at youth level international sides from the other Home Nations are regular visitors but Jersey’s attempts to join the wider international arena have been stymied.

Only places recognised by the United Nations are able to join UEFA – a move designed to placate Spain, who threatened to quit international football if an application to join the European body by Gibraltar during the 1990s was approved. The change in UEFA statutes was not retrospective, allowing the four Home Nations to retain their historic international status, but has succeeded in keeping out other international aspirants, such as the Gibraltarians, Kosovo, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – and Jersey.

Jersey has a population of 87,400 – roughly double that of FIFA members Andorra, the Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein and San Marino - and while former England international Graeme Le Saux is their biggest name, there are significantly more of his ‘countrymen’ playing professionally than there are Andorrans or Sammarinese.

Brett Pittman features in the Championship for Bristol City as a striker, while Peter Vincenti and Curtis Guthrie both play in League Two at Aldershot and Accrington Stanley respectively.

Jack Boyle did not make the grade at Southampton, but Marco Zocchi was offered a pro contract at Bournemouth last year and Michael Weir – son of JFA president Ricky – recently signed a two-year contract with Portuguese first division side CD Nacional after an impressive year on loan last season at AD Camacha.

All these are younger players but, despite all this evidence that the JFA’s strategy is working, as a British Crown Dependency the island remains in international limbo. Jersey has as much independence as the four Home Nations – probably more in terms of taxation – but will never meet the UN’s membership criteria.

In 2007, the JFA wrote to Michel Platini and the UEFA president responded, confirming that there could be no exceptions to their statutes: Jersey’s international ambitions were seemingly stifled.

In January of 2008, outgoing Football Association head Geoff Thompson visited the island and took up Jersey’s cause. His mandate at the FA was gone, but Thompson was also a FIFA vice president and took up Jersey’s case.

Later that year, Jersey hosted an international tournament – of sorts – staging a three-team event with Madeira and Gibraltar and Thompson subsequently persuaded FIFA to set up a Small Nations working group to try and help non-controversial places stuck in limbo. This lobbying culminated in Thompson returning to the island with Urs Kluser, development director for FIFA’s ‘member associations and development division’, in April 2010. The visit was the third and final leg of Kluser’s expedition that had also taken in the tiny Pacific island state of Tuvalu and Sint Maarten - a Dutch administered territory that occupies half of the Caribbean island of Saint Marten.

But there was no breakthrough for Jersey and a double whammy followed: Kluser left FIFA last September and Jersey’s other main ally, Geoff Thompson, departed earlier this year. The international arena seemed beyond Jersey and that was seemingly confirmed by Guernsey’s move into club football – a move that could even endanger the historic annual Muratti Vase between the Channel Islands as this season’s game is just days before the end of the Combined Counties season.

The Muratti apart, Jersey’s main ‘international’ outlet is the football tournament at the bi-annual Island Games. Two years ago, Jersey won the title for a record third time beating the hosts Åland 2-1 but lost their title this year, going down at the semi-final stage in the Isle of Wight.

The JFA have not given up though and plans are being formulated to stage an 'International Challenge Shield' next June in Gibraltar that would feature these two sides, the Isle of Man and – depending on club commitments – Guernsey. All four sides are, like many French territories, stuck in international limbo but the likes of Guadeloupe and Mayotte do get to play in the bi-annual Coupe de l’Outre Mer.

Every two years, the Fédération Française de Football spend €900,000 staging the Overseas Cup for French territories, while the Dutch FA is helping organise the annual ABCS Cup for Dutch speaking countries and colonies. Could the Shield perhaps be the start of something bigger for those remnants of the British Empire that also need an international leg-up?

Kosovo still left out in the cold

This story also appeared at InBedWithMaradona.com

The recent meeting of FIFA’s executive committee focused mainly on how Sepp Blatter planned to reinvigorate his tattered world body and leave a legacy untainted by corruption and governance problems.

Down among the footnotes was another decision taken by FIFA’s ExCo that yet again crushed Kosovo’s nascent hopes of joining the game’s international ranks.

The Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) has been unable to join FIFA as their country has not been allowed into the United Nations (UN).

The FFK did persuade FIFA to include Kosovars in the new Transfer Matching System (TMS) that regulates international transfers. Aimed at clamping down on money laundering, TMS started last season and extending the system to include the FFK meant that Kosovan clubs would no longer lose players to foreign clubs without receiving a transfer fee.

That is the upside. The downside is that since Kosovo was included in TMS, no Kosovan players have been transferred overseas. That may change, but FIFA’s refusal to extend its de facto recognition of the FFK past the TMS system looks unlikely to change with UEFA doing nothing to help the isolated Kosovans.

The Serbs oppose any recognition of Kosovo and their representatives did not even turn up at 2009 talks aimed at breaking the impasse, organised not by UEFA – seemingly the obvious mediators – but by FIFA.

At least the world body was trying to find a solution. UEFA president Michel Platini choe a visit to Belgrade to re-iterate his stance that only when Kosovo is recognised by the UN will acceptance into the European elite be allowed.

Platini is simply delaying the inevitable and showing little sympathy for the FFK, which gets by on not much more than £300,000 a year.

This season for the first time the FFK managed to sell TV rights to matches in the Kosovan Superliga, providing a small fillip for the fledgling body and its members. A more substantial bonus would come from joining FIFA, which would provide additional funding of U$D 250,000 a year through its financial assistance programme.

The FFK know that getting into FIFA is a longer game and had not even asked for membership but instead asked the recent ExCo meeting in Zurich to let Kosovo play international friendlies.

The answer was ‘no’. A more positive response would have put players like Lazio’s Lorik Cana and former West Ham midfielder Valon Behrami – now Also in Serie A with Fiorentina – in a difficult position.

Denied a chance to play at international level for their homeland, Kosovans have to find a new home. Cana and Behrami moved to Albania and Switzerland as children as their parents fled the war back home.

FIFA have decreed that if Kosovo win recognition, Kosovars can abandon their adopted countries and turn out for the land of their birth. Albania and Switzerland, whose teenage prodigy Xherdan Shaqiri is also a Kosovar, could suffer badly from Kosovan recognition by FIFA.

Playing friendlies for Kosovo may have even proved preferable for older players such as Cana or Behrami, who - with neither Albania nor Switzerland going to Euro 2012 – now have no competitive internationals for nearly a year.

As UEFA and FIFA sit Canute-like in their Zurich thrones, a solution may come from the former Yugoslav republic’s politicians.

Once more than half of the UN’s 192 members have recognised Kosovo, the country’s application can go to a vote that, for all the lobbying of Serbia and its influential ally Russia, simply requires a majority to be passed.

Most of western Europe and the United States have long recognised Kosovo. Kuwait and Ivory Coast recently swelled those ranks and 85 countries have formal relations with Kosovo. Once that number reaches 96, the intransigence of FIFA and UEFA may be overcome. In the meantime, Kosovo’s footballers will stay in limbo.