Viva World Cup 2010

Kurdistan vs Regno della due Sicilies. Image courtesy Miléna Kit NFB (c)

This article also appears on Play The Game

Padania completed a hat-trick of successes in the Viva World Cup for non-FIFA nations at the weekend but the latest tournament in the Maltese island of Gozo was a far lower profile affair than last year.

In 2009, Padania hosted the tournament in a blaze of publicity, including live TV coverage of some games, but Sunday’s 1-0 win over Kurdistan – a repeat of last year’s final – was not screened after Kurdish television decided against screening the tournament.

This year’s VWC did see the highest number of entrants with six teams playing and sponsorship from Vellone Sports and Bank of Valletta.

The tournament was also staged without interference by the Malta Football Association and a full international took part for the first time with Danijel Bogdanovic of Sheffield United and Malta captaining hosts, Gozo.

The tournament also featured Provence, Occitania – a side of players, who can speak the medieval language of Occitan - and Regno della due Sicilies representing the ancient kingdom of southern Italy.

The first VWC was held in 2006 in southern France and nine different teams have played in the four tournaments but Monaco, a team representing Sweden’s Aramean Suryoye minority and the Sami tribe from Scandinavia did not travel to Gozo.

The Sami played in the first three tournaments but missed out after internal disputes between the Swedish and Norwegian elements of the tribe.

The next VWC will be in Kurdistan in 2012 after the organisers, the New Federation Board pushed back the tournament by a year to try and attract teams from the Island Games football tournament, which will be held in 2011 on the Isle of Wight.

Monaco quits NF Board

A version of this story appeared in Soccer Business World.

The Monaco Football Association has quit the NF Board for non-FIFA nations, which later this month holds its fourth Viva World Cup (VWC).

As a member of the United Nations, the Mediterranean principality is eligible to join UEFA but has not done so for fears that this could jeopardise the position of AS Monaco ASM) in France’s Ligue 1. Opportunities for Monegasques are rare at ASM and local players that started there, such as Guy Platto, Renaud Connen and Gregory Campi, have invariably left.

A national team was started in response to these lack of opportunities but, excluding tax exiles, Monaco only has a population of around 8,000 and there are only 60-odd eligible players.

Monaco were one of the founder members of the NF Board and played in the first VWC in 2006 but the growth of the organisation and inclusion of teams such as Kurdistan and Padania has created problems for Monaco.

“We didn’t participate to the [2010] Viva World Cup as we are not anymore member of the NF Board,” explained Yohan Garino, one of Monaco’s most capped players. “For political reason, we are not authorized by our Government to play against some teams.

"We also had some problems with the NF Board and teams of the association who used pictures of the national football team of Monaco and the Prince Albert as advertisement for their many exhibitions without authorisations. We were very disappointed about this last point which deserves us.”

Monaco have written to the NF Board explaining their decision. The organisation’s secretary general, Jean-Luc Kit, expressed his disappointment but hopes that some solution can be produced to prompt Monaco to return but with the next VWC scheduled for Iraqi Kurdistan in 2012, this may create further political problems that keep the Monegasques on the sidelines.

New FIFA members?

This story also appears on Play The Game

A FIFA working party is attempting to help small nations and territories unable to gain recognition by the world body in a move that risks sparking outrage among other potential members.

Geoff Thompson, a former chairman of England’s Football Association (FA) and a current vice president of FIFA, chairs a working group at the world body that is looking at issues faced by small nations and territories not currently recognized internationally. Thompson and Urs Kluser, director of member associations and development at FIFA, have visited the tiny Pacific island state of Tuvalu and Sint Maarten - a Dutch administered territory that occupies half of the Caribbean island of Saint Marten. Their low-key programme of trips culminated in a visit to the British Crown dependency of Jersey on April 14-16.

“The key purpose of their visit [to Jersey] was to understand the football organisation within the island, understand the current island situation with regard to football development [and] understand the relationship with and support currently received from the FA,” explained FIFA, which confirmed that only three places are being visited by Thompson’s working party and that no other visits are planned.

Tuvalu, which has a population of just over 12,000, took part in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers without even being a full member of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) let alone FIFA. FIFA is waiting on a final report from Tuvalu following the working party’s visit and the island is likely to become Oceania’s twelfth full member and the next member of the world body.

That will disappoint a number of other territories lobbying for FIFA membership, notably Kosovo, whose independence from Yugoslavia in February 2008 has been recognized by 66 countries – but not by the United Nations (UN) or FIFA. FIFA is working to stamp out illegal trading in Kosovan players, which has denied clubs in Kosovo much-needed funds, but any new member of the world body must be accepted by a regional confederation first.

UEFA insists that all new members are recognized by the UN to prevent Gibraltar from joining and upsetting Spain. This rule also keeps out Kosovo, whose independence is vehemently disputed by Serbia, and UEFA president Michel Platini has promised the Serbs that he will respect the UN’s decision – a promise that will also hinder Jersey’s aspirations. Any move towards international footballing recognition would provoke a political storm in Serbia and Russia and FIFA confirmed to media in Kosovo that no visits from Thompson’s working party are scheduled.

FIFA’s last attempt to resolve a long-running political dispute brought the football association in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Cyprus Football Association together for the first official talks in more than three decades but these ground to a halt after two years.

The world body has been more successful in helping associations in less contentious regions, such as Greenland, where last year a U$D 400,000 FIFA grant channeled through the Dansk Boldspil-Union provided the Arctic island with its first artificial pitch. The Jersey Football Association is keen that their attempts to develop football on the Channel Island are seen in isolation and do not get caught up in sporting politics.

“Of course nothing is guaranteed but I do believe there is now a genuine recognition and understanding of the international void we find ourselves in,” said JFA president Ricky Weir after Thompson’s visit.

On returning to Switzerland, Kluser told Weir: “It was inspirational to see what a small FA can achieve. I will certainly share with my colleagues what we have seen during our stay on the island. As discussed in our meetings, we will do what we can to further the question of the Jersey FA within the international football family.”
Jersey is a member of the FA, along with neighbours Guernsey, and the JFA is trying to set up a competition with other places caught in international limbo – but only non-contentious ones, not the likes of Kosovo.

Jersey’s plans for an International Shield have yet to come to fruition but this September the Fédération Française de Football (FFF) will stage the second Coupe De L’Outre Mer for French departments. The tournament began last year and eight teams will journey to France for the next event, featuring Reunion, Martinique, French Guiana, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Saint Pierre et Miquelon, French Polynesia and Guadeloupe.

For Guadeloupe, the tournament is a vital outlet for a region, whose team reached the semi-finals and quarter finals respectively of the last two Gold Cups for teams in CONCACAF yet is not even a full member of this body so remains excluded from World Cup qualifying. News that FIFA’s working party would not be visiting Guadeloupe was a disappointment to the Ligue Guadeloupeenne de Football but the LGF’s Alain Soreze said: “In Guadeloupe, we work hard with French FA to authorize us to be a full member of CONCACAF that is our first step.”

Jersey Breakthrough

This story has also been published by When Saturday Comes

Could last week’s visit to Jersey by a FIFA delegation be the first step towards playing the Channel Island playing international football?

The trip to the island was led by Geoff Thompson, formerly chairman of the Football Association, but more latterly a vice president of both FIFA and UEFA. In tow was Urs Kluser, development director for FIFA’s grandly titled member associations and development division.

“They were extremely positive about what they found in Jersey,” Ricky Weir, president of the Jersey Football Association (JFA), told WSC. “Of course nothing is guaranteed but I do believe there is now a genuine recognition and understanding of the international void we find ourselves in.”

Jersey has a population of 87,400 – roughly double that of FIFA members Andorra, the Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein and San Marino – but as a British Crown Dependency is not eligible for FIFA.

Not because of FIFA’s regulations, which simply require recognition by the undefined ‘international community’ but because the JFA needs to get into UEFA first. The European body has far tighter membership criteria. Potential entrants must be members of the United Nations – a rule designed to keep out Gibraltar and appease Spain. As a result, Jersey is on the international touchlines along with the likes of Guadeloupe and Kosovo.

What makes FIFA’s visit to St Helier interesting is that firstly, FIFA finally seems to have accepted that a grey area exists between regional and international football and, secondly, that Jersey has successfully promoted itself into this limbo zone.

Not content with the football tournament at the Island Games – a sort of mini-Olympiad for islands – in 2008 Jersey staged a three-way tournament with two other rejects, Gibraltar and Madeira, and plan another tournament with Guernsey.
Guernsey are looking to field a club side in a UK-league but under Weir, who was born in Coatbridge and played internationals for the British Virgin Islands before moving to St Helier, Jersey will not let the idea of international football drop.

Weir has been in contact with UEFA president Michel Platini but enticing an official FIFA delegation is the JFA’s biggest success to date. After returning home, Kulser told the JFA: “As discussed in our meetings, we will do what we can to further the question of the Jersey FA within the international football family.”
Kulser’s working party has also visited an unidentified Asian region and another in CONCACAF.

In response to WSC’s questions, FIFA said: “Geoff Thompson and Urs Kluser’s visit was as part of working group chaired by Mr Thompson to look at the issues faced by small nations and territories, such as Jersey, not currently recognized internationally. The key purpose of their visit was to: understand the football organisation within the island; understand the current island situation with regard to football development; [and] understand the relationship with and support currently received from The FA.”

FIFA said the other places included in Kr Kulser’s could not be “clarified” until later this week but one place in CONCACAF that is also stuck in international limbo is Guadeloupe.

As a French department, Guadeloupe is not eligible for FIFA and the island’s footballers traditionally aspired to play for Les Bleus. Players like Marius Tresor and Lilian Thuram did so with success but that all changed in 2007, when Jocelyn Angloma, a veteran of Euro 92 and 96, accepted that his French international days were gone and returned home.

Led by Angloma, Guadeloupe reached the semi-finals of the 2007 Gold Cup (the North and Central American regional championship) where they were edged out 1-0 by Mexico. Angloma had retired by the time of the next Gold Cup in 2009 but the Gwada Boys still made the quarter finals.

Alain Soreze from the Ligue Guadeloupeenne de Football confirmed to WSC that the LGF had heard nothing about a visit from FIFA but without something greater to play for than the Gold Cup, Guadeloupe’s flourishing football scene will wither, as will the hamstrung game in Kosovo.

Dozens of countries recognise that Kosovo is a country. Sadly, the Serbs and Russia do not, forcing the likes of Lorik Cana and Valon Behrami into adopting other countries to play internationals.

Bournemouth’s St Helier-born striker Brett Pittman might not seem to be in the same bracket, but with FIFA showing signs of wanting to solve the dilemmas that a combination of politics and football generate, an international call-up could soon be on the way.

Viva World Cup Draw

A version of this story was published in Soccer Business World and Play The Game.

A record six men's teams have entered next month’s Viva World Cup (VWC) for international teams not affiliated to FIFA.

The tournament that will be held in the Maltese island of Gozo for a week starting on May 29 2010 is the fourth staged by the NF Board and features the largest field so far.

The hosts will play with a side drawn from Gozo FC, which has previously played in the Maltese first division before slipping down the island’s pyramid, plus local teams, such as 2009/10 Gozo league champions Sannat Lions.

Gozo have been drawn with Padania, a team drawn from northern Italy that won the 2008 tournament and retained the trophy at last year’s third VWC. Padania have been linked by some critics of the tournament with the separatist Liga Nord political party but the NF Board insist that politics must play no part in the tournament.

Occitania, a team comprised of players who can speak the medieval language of Occitan found in southern France, Monaco and parts of Italy, make up a group with Gozo and Padania. Occitania staged the first three-team tournament in 2007 but have not taken part since. The other group features a side drawn from Iraqi Kurdistan that was runners-up last year and are expected to host the next tournament in 2012.

A team from the French region of Provence took part last year and has again entered. The other side in this group is a new entrant with a team representing the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with players drawn from southern Italy

The Scandinavian Sami tribe – known more commonly as Laplanders – won the inaugural tournament in Occitania in 2007 and staged the 2008 event but for the first time in the event’s brief history will not send a team in 2010.

The Sami are spread across Norway, Sweden, Finland and a handful in Russia. Traditionally, the Sami FA has been made up of teams from Norway and Sweden but a number of the old Sami FA board have quit since the Norwegian Leif Isak Nilut was replaced as president two years ago by Mikkel Isak Eiras of Norwegian club Kautokeino IL. Departures include Hakan Kuorak from Gällivare, home to many of the Swedish Sami and the hosts for the 2008 VWC. "Now the Sami FA are concentrated to Norway and not the whole Sami area," said Kuorak.

Monaco also entered the first tournament but have not entered since, while the side drawn from Swedean’s Aramean Suroye community that played in 2008 will not feature in Gozo either.

The draw took place in Gozo at the weekend but was disrupted by the cloud of volcanic ash that has forced the cancellation of many air flights across Europe. At the draw, Jean Luc Kit also returned to the role of secretary general of the NF Board after a brief hiatus.

The last final was screened on satellite TV channel Rai Sport and there was also coverage on a number of other TV stations, including Rai Sport, Canale 5 and Rai 3.

The NF Board hope to get similar air-time for this year’s event, which will be sponsored by Vellone Sports and held in the 4,000 capacity Gozo Stadium in Xewkija and the Sannat Ground, which has a new artificial playing surface. A women’s tournament was to feature Gozo, Padania and Corsica and be staged at the same time as the men’s event but the French controlled island will not now take part.

Greenland's first artificial pitch

An edited version of this feature appears in the latest issue of PanStadia magazine

The relentless growth of artificial sports surfaces has seen pitches established in just about every corner of the world – except one.

Greenland is the largest island in the world and one of the most sparsely populated places on earth yet more than 10 per cent of the 55,000 people that live there regularly play football despite obstacles few other players in the world could cope with.

The extreme climate means a season that only runs from May to September at best and when players can get outside and play, fixtures are generally played out sand pitches that mean tracksuit bottoms are essential and injuries from the hard surface proliferate.

The Greenland Football Association, the Grønlands Boldspil-Union (GBU), knew that an artificial pitch could transform how the game was played but finding the funds was the main problem.

A football championship was first staged in Greenland in 1958 and the GBU was set up in 1971 but the Greenlanders have slowly been moving towards greater political independence. In 1979, Greenland won home rule and, along with the Faroe Islands, now forms part of the Danish commonwealth.

As part of these wider moves towards greater autonomy, the Sports Confederation of Greenland cut ties with the Danish Sports Confederation. This meant that the GBU would stand alone from the Danish football association, the Dansk Boldspil-Union (DBU). Finding wider recognition with FIFA proved problematic, making development of the sport difficult but despite this, the GBU and agreed in 2006 that getting such a an artificial surface had to be a priority.

An artificial turf specialist from Denmark was invited over to Greenland and visited the island’s different towns to find a suitable venue. That in itself was no mean feat as Greenland has virtually no roads apart from a few kilometers in the capital, Nuuk. To get around the 2.2 million square kilometre island, which has a population of just 55,000, means trips by small plane or boat. Eventually, Qaqortoq was proposed as the most suitable venue.

The GBU worked with different civic groups on the plans and the DBU came on board with Poul Gilling, head of department for education and development, taking a keen interest in the project. Although the GBU is not affiliated to FIFA, Gilling saw a solution in the world body’s Goal Project, which has funded essential development projects across the globe.

FIFA had funded a Goal Project in French Guiana, which is an associate member of Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football but not affiliated to the world body. That grant was secured by the Fédération Française de Football, who applied on behalf of French Guiana, which is a French overseas department.

Greenland has more political autonomy than French Guiana but with the GBU unable to affiliate to FIFA, in 2005 a co-operation agreement was reached with the DBU to help the Greenlanders out with educating coaches, referees and organizers. When this agreement was renewed at the end of 2007, the GBU asked the DBU to support an application for Goal funding. Poul Gilling explains: “We decided to support them and a letter was sent to FIFA during the summer of 2008 signed by the [DBU] president Allan Hansen. FIFA decided to give the Danish FA money from the goal project and told us that they wanted us to tell the [GBU] that FIFA had supported the building of an artificial turf in Greenland. During a meeting with the Greenlandic FA at the end of 2008 we told them the news.”

The GBU’s president Lars Lundblad had the bulk of the funding that he needed for the project but more money was still needed. “The whole price for the artificial turf was about U$D 500,000 and FIFA paid U$D 400,000, explains Jens Tang Olesen, the manager of Greenland’s national team. “The rest was found locally in Qaqortoq. A group called Tapisali, who has been working with the plan for many years, collected about U$D 50,000.”

As FIFA was funding the project, the clients had to ask FIFA preferred suppliers to tender. Each of the bidders had to send a representative to Qaqortoq. The bidders were whittled down to two firms and Dutch supplier Edel Grass won out. Edel teamed up with native firm, Greenland Mining Services, and the local council, Kommune Kujalleq, to lay the surface with work starting in July. “Due to the climate it was important to be sure that the construction could handle a lot of snow, water and wind,” says the DBU’s Poul Gilling.

EDEL had worked on another FIFA sponsored project for the DBY for Brondby but for the company’s project manager Martin Høeg, the work in Qaqortoq was something really quite different. He explains: “Obviously, the Greenland weather conditions could potentially be quite a big challenge for this project. Even when most warm in July and August, the weather can suddenly, and without any warning, change for the worse.

Fortunately we got all thinkable support from the locals, including the local entrepreneur, who was doing the sub base and from the local representatives from the Greenland Football Association. Another big challenge unlike our traditional pitches [elsewhere] was the transport of grass and infill. Fortunately the professionals from Royal Arctic Line were very helpful in working out the most rational ways of getting our goods from different parts of Europe all the way to Qaqortoq.”

All the components for the project were shipped via Aalborg in Denmark to Qaqortoq, while EDEL sent out a team of four people led by Mr Høeg to work with the locals and the DBU persuaded Danish artificial turf expert Ejvind Naesborg to come out of retirement to act as their representative. “The good people of the Greenland FA were apparently able to light a spark in his mind, explaining about this exciting project in a place far, far away from his normal habitat,” explains Mr Høeg.

When the pitch was inaugurated on September 19 2009, crowds of people flocked to the rocks surrounding the turf to watch an unheralded club match (see photos).
Qaqortoq only has one club, K-33, with 150 children and 100 adults playing regularly in the town but around eight clubs and an estimated 400 children and 300 adults play in the wider South Greenland area, known as Kommune Kujalleq. As travel is so problematic in Greenland, a national championship is determined by local qualifiers with the winners of these regional series travelling to one destination for a play-off. When the championships are staged in remote towns like Uummannaq, participating can be a three-week commitment for players as travel to and from the finals can take a week for some sides and often involve boats and planes.

K-33 staged the championships in 1987, 1988, 1991, 1998 and most recently in 2003 and EDEL’s new surface will make Qaqortoq a popular venue for future championships once players and officials get a chance to experience what the new surface has to offer.

“When the football players and other people in Qaqortoq and South Greenland can see how wonderful it will be, many other places also will try to build artificial turf,” adds Jens Tang Olesen. “I think that it will be a kind of icebreaker, because it is the first in Greenland. Since 19 September, when the new turf in Qaqortoq was inaugurated the crime among the young people in Qaqortoq is going down. The turf will be very good for the football education in South Greenland – the players can now train and work more with their football technique and I think that the team-playing will be more possession than before, and the players can now tackle the opposition players without risk of getting hurt.”

Ironically, the only regular source of overseas competitive fixtures for Olesen’s team is the football tournament at the bi-annual Island Games, a sort of mini-Olympics for islands, where games are generally played on grass. Greenland played in every tournament since the Island Games’ inception in 1989 only to sit out the 2007 event due to lack of money. Greenland’s ladies went to Rhodes in 2008 instead but Olesen’s team returned for the last Island Games in the Finnish island of Åland in 2009 and should be in the Isle of Wight in 2011.

However, with Greenland’s first artificial turf finally in place, Olesen and the GBU are hopeful that more pitches will follow and are advancing plans for a tournament of their own. “The GBU hope that other towns will follow Qaqortoq,” explains Olesen. “The GBU try via newspapers and contact to the various agency and tell them how important this new artificial turf is for the football players in Greenland. The GBU hope that in 2012 there will be one or two new artificial turfs in other towns in Greenland, so that there can be arranged an international football tournament in Greenland, perhaps in Nuuk.”

For the DBU, there is also a larger goal. “With this project we hope a lot of children in Greenland will play a lot more football,” says Poul Gilling. “There are not many teams coming from Denmark to play in Greenland. With the new turf it might be possible that some teams will travel to Greenland to play.”

The subject of a television documentary by Greenlandic station KNW, few artificial surfaces are likely to be a transformative as the new pitch at Qaqortoq.

PROJECT BOX
Project: artificial turf pitch
Location: Qaqortoq, southern Greenland
Pitch size: 35-m x 64-m
Cost: U$D 500,000
Clients: Grønlands Boldspil-Union/Dansk Boldspil-Union
DBU advisor: Ejvind Naesborg
Turf supplier: Edel Grass
Contractors: Greenland Mining Services/Kommune Kujalleq

Pohnpei win first game for nine years

The Micronesian island of Pohnpei State has beaten a strong Island All-Star side 2-1 in their first game since 2001.

After the success of last year’s Pohnpei Premier League, a national team was formed with the goal of a trip to Guam at the end of July 2010.

This was to be a real test for English coach Paul Watson’s side as the All-Stars had some of the island’s most respected and revered footballers, including Fijian powerhouse Tui, tricky striker Edwin Sione and SDA aces Matthew Barbosa and Ryan Billington.

Wearing their new uniforms, Pohnpei struggled to master the bumpy pitch in the opening minutes and they fell behind when Premier League top scorer Matthew Barbosa fired home.

But months of practice started to pay off as the men in blue passed the ball around neatly, creating several half-chances with Joseph Welson blasting inches over the bar and Marvin Jack nearly releasing Ryan Johnson with a delicate through ball. The goal can be seen here

When Pohnpei did get their breakthrough it was courtesy of young striking star Joseph Welson. He latched on to a Dilshan Senarathgoda pass and made no mistake in finding the net for 1-1.

The Pohnpei defence was now playing with authority. Denson Fairfield was magnificent in the air, Tom Mawi outmuscled any attacker while the experienced Robert Paul impressed in his new left-back role and Rocky Henly showed the excellent command of the game that earned him the Pohnpei Premier League Best Defender Award.

Nick Santiago, arguably Pohnpei State’s most exciting rising star, thriving in the defensive midfield position and Micah Selikar fought hard on the wing,
Growing in confidence, Pohnpei started to control the pace and play attractive two-touch passing football, but they found it hard to pick holes in the opposition defence.

At half-time, Charles Welson replaced Andrew Falcam in goal and Roger Nakasuna came on for Robert Paul.

And 10 minutes into the second period, Pohnpei went in front as Joseph Welson scored his second goal of the game – a cool finish to beat the onrushing goalkeeper.
Young talent Rodrigo Matamba substituted the excellent Marvin Jack and Island Warriors captain and Premier League Player of the Tournament Bob Paul came on for Ryan Johnson, whose limitless energy had caused constant trouble for the All-Stars defence.

Bob and Rodrigo were both sent into space by captain Dilshan, but after bursting clear with a turn of pace both could only find the goalkeeper with their crosses.
Neither side could find the net again as the light faded and Pohnpei had its first win in an official game.

Pohnpei Soccer would like to thank Albert Carlot for expertly refereeing the game, Micronesian Seminar for filming and Visual Impact for providing a camera for pictures.

Pohnpei State 2-1 Island All-Stars
Barbosa 4 (All Stars) J Welson 25, 55 (Pohnpei State)
Pohnpei State Team: Andrew Falcam (Charles Welson 45); Rocky Henly, Tom Mawi, Denson Fairfield, Robert Paul (Roger Nakasuna 45); Nick Santiago, Dilshan Senarathgoda, Micah Selikar, Marvin Jack (Rodrigo Matamba 60); Joseph Welson, Ryan Johnson (Bob Paul 60)
Referee: Albert Carlot

Viva World Cup 2012

The following story is also available at Play The Game

The fifth world cup for ‘national’ teams that are not members of FIFA will be held in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2012 with up to a dozen teams.

The fifth version of the Viva World Cup (VWC) was due to be held in 2011 but has been put back a year after the organizers, the NF Board, struck an agreement with the Island Games Association (IGA), which is being held will in the Isle of Wight the same year.

NF Board secretary general Jean Luc Kit said: “We decided to play the Viva World Cup every two years and when the Island Games will not be played in deal with the IGA. The IGA explained that they want to help us.”

The Island Games is a biennial mini-Olympiad for islands and the football tournament at the last tournament earlier this year in the Finnish island of Åland saw the biggest entry yet with 16 teams entering.

IGA chairman Jörgen Pettersson agreed the deal at last weekend’s NF Board general assembly in Paris, which was attended by more than 50 people. He said: “The differences [between the IGA and the NF Board] are pretty big. Our members are islands and well defined, the NF Board members are more of territories and often complicated to define. We will however do our best to help them in their work to provide competition for sportspeople. After all, that is what we all do.”

The NF Board has visited Kurdistan, which took part in the 2008 and 2009 VWC’s, and claims that the Kurdistan Football Association (KFA) has funding to host up to a dozen teams in 2012. For some cash-strapped IGA members, such as Greenland, the possibility of financial assistance to compete in Kurdistan could prove tempting – hence the deal in Pairs.

“We went [to Kurdistan] and all the people, all the media, and the main cities want to host this competition,” added Mr Kit. “The area is totally secure they will have money to host the 10 or 12 teams scheduled.”

Kurdistan has a three-tier league, including a 16-team top flight, and the 25,000 capacity Franso Hariri Stadium in Erbil, and KFA representatives were among the more than 50 people at the NF Board assembly.

“[The KFA] did a presentation of their region and surprised me a lot having thought about the region as dangerous and poor,” added Mr Pettersson. It is probably the other side around nowadays with two international airports and a Four Season Hotel under construction.”

The NF Board assembly also included representatives of football associations claiming to represent Corsica, the Casamance region of Senegal, Provence in France, Wallonia, the Padania region of northern Italy, which hosted the third VWC earlier this year.

The football association from the Maltese island of Gozo was also in Paris and will host the next VWC from May 25 to June 2010 at the Sannat and Gozo stadiums. Also in Paris were representatives of footballers from Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that was occupied by Morocco in 1975.

“A delegation of three people came from the [refugee] camps in Algeria,” added Mr Kit. “They are very motivated, worked hard and re full of contacts. Western Sahara has two sets of players in Spain and the Canary Islands at a good level.”

New FIFA deal for Kosovo

This story is also on Play The Game

A deal to ensure that Kosovan clubs are compensated properly when players sign for foreign sides should be rubber-stamped this Friday (December 4) at FIFA’s executive committee meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.

Last week, Football Association of Kosovo president Fadil Vokrri and general secretary Eroll Salihu traveled to Zurich to show FIFA documents that proved the FFK was a member of the old Yugoslavian association just like other states that broke away and secured independence, such as Croatia and Slovenia.
Having established this with FIFA, the FFK expect an international players’ certificate for Kosovan players to be agreed in Cape Town.

“For the past two decades Kosovar players have been taken or have moved about without any authorization whatsoever,” says Edmond Rugova, the former manager of the Kosovan national team and now chief executive of the country’s biggest club, FC Prishtina.

“If FIFA writes these certificates for Kosovar players into law then the players, the clubs and the FA's would be protected. Kosovar clubs will be able to demand signing on fees just like any other club, which so far hasn't been the case.”

At last week’s meeting in Zurich, the FFK also handed over to FIFA a list of players who have been signed by foreign clubs, who did not pay any fee to their Kosovan clubs.

Rugova explains: “Players have been taken from FC Prishtina and other clubs for nothing before. A few years ago FC Prishtina players like Armend Dallku and Debatik Curri who now play for FC Poltava [in the] Ukraine and represent Albania internationally were taken without authorization or compensation. That practice continues to this day, except FC Prishtina that has been able to put an end to it by demanding that the laws for player transfer are respected.”

Last year, FC Prishtina secured transfer fees for the first time when Swiss clubs FC Schaffhausen and Winterthur signed Visar Berisha and Shqipron Skeraj respectively but this was a one-off.

“FC Prishtina was compensated properly [and] is the only club in Kosovo that has been able to accomplish this,” says Rugova. “I believe FIFA's decision to take up on this issue and hopefully legitimize it is a step in the right direction before [the FFK] becomes a full member of FIFA and UEFA.”

Greater political recognition is needed before that can be secured but the FFK has already sealed a deal to take advantage of the lucrative commercial opportunities that will come with full membership and the international fixtures in the World Cup and European championship qualifying rounds that come with that.

The FFK has signed a strategic alliance with the Swiss-based Kentaro Group, who will market TV, media and sponsorship rights for Kosovan football in return for helping the FFK develop a more professional structure.

“As soon as Kosovo is recognised by the European Union and the United Nations as an independent state, there will no longer be any obstacle to it becoming a member of FIFA and UEFA,” said FFK president Fadil Vokkri. “Together with Kentaro, we will establish Kosovan football.”

Serbs do not show up for Kosovo talks

This story is also on Play The Game


Former Kosovo manager, Edmond Rugova

Kosovo’s footballers could have to wait another decade for international recognition. That is the view of the country’s former manager after the Serbian Football Association did not take up an invitation from FIFA for tri-partite talks with the Kosovans in Zurich.

Edmond Rugova, a former Yugoslavia U-20 international and player for the New York Cosmos, said: “I knew that the Serbian FA was not going to show up. Their pretext was that, the Kosovo FA does not exist.
“FIFA's invitation for [the] Kosovo FA to come to the table in Zurich in an official capacity for the first time ever acknowledges that the Kosovo FA does exist and that something should be done. This is going to be a long and drawn out process, three to five maybe 10 years. It took 20 years to get to this point. It's going to take another who knows what.”

The 45 minute meeting in Zurich on November 5 was hosted by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and also included secretary general Jerome Valcke and Geoff Thompson, former chairman of the Football Association in England.

Kosovan player transfers
The talks were primarily to discuss the issue of Kosovan players being transferred out of clubs in the former Yugoslav republic, whose independence is so far recognized by 63 countries but not yet the United Nations.

The Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) delegation, which included president Fadil Vokrri, secretary general, Eroll Salihu, and vice-presidents Agim Ademi and Bekim Haxhiu, were told that this was imminent.

At FIFA’s next executive committee meeting in Cape Town in December, the introduction of certificates allowing Kosovan players to be transferred internationally should be ratified, Blatter said.

“Now there is hope”
Without UN recognition, Kosovo cannot join FIFA and enter the European championship or World Cup but after the meeting Valcke told journalists that if another 30 countries recognize Kosovo’s independence then the FFK will be automatically admitted.

A two-year wait is generally needed but Valcke said that the leagues, regulations and structures were already in place.

Kosovo want to play international friendlies and to integrate their clubs into European competition. Neither were on the agenda in Zurich but Rugova, who quit his job as Kosovo’s manager earlier this year due to lack of fixtures, still believes that last week’s talks represent progress.

“The player transfer issue is a step in the right direction but the whole set of issues remain to be decided upon sometime in the future,” said Rugova, now chief executive of Kosovo’s biggest club, Prishtina FC.
“In the end this is a positive development, the door has been opened just a little bit, we'll have to wait and see how long it will take for it to open wide. In the mean time all of us in Kosovo football will have to work even harder, because now there is hope.”

Serbia declined to participate
Tomislav Karadzic, the president of the Football Association of Serbia, initially agreed to attend the talks and all an FAS spokesman would say to Play the Game about his no-show was: “The only fair way is to talk of Kosovo within Serbia.”

In a letter to Valcke, the FAS wrote: “Regarding your call to the meeting, we would like to inform you that talks on the issue have been held with all the relevant figures within the Serbian FA. According to the stances, which were expressed on the issue during the talks, we inform you that we are unable to accept the invitation for the proposed meeting.”

The Serbs do not recognize the FFK but an alternative Kosovan football association ran out of the Kosovan city of Mitrovica. After the meeting Valcke reassured the Kosovan delegation that the FFK was the only football association that FIFA represented in Kosovo.
UEFA have not been involved in the talks and a FIFA spokesperson told Play the Game: “We don't have any comments on the talks.”

A new meeting between FIFA and FFK has been arranged and will take place in Zurich on November 25.

Kosovo & Serbia FIFA talks

This story also appeared at Play The Game.

The football associations of Serbia and Kosovo will have their first official meeting in Zurich this Friday (November 5) in talks hosted by FIFA aimed at dragging the former Yugoslav republic out of sporting limbo.

Kosovo declared independence in February last year but has not been admitted into the United Nations (UN) – the key criteria for UEFA membership - after furious opposition from Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, and its key ally Russia.

UEFA would not comment but a FIFA spokesman confirmed the meeting and added: “The meeting will discuss some practical issues … like the transfer of players out of Kosovo need to be addressed.”

Geoff Thompson, the former chairman of the Football Association in England, will mediate between the two delegations led by Fadil Vokrri of the Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) with Tomislav Karadjic, president of the Serbian FA, also likely to attend.

Kosovan footballers have been left in limbo with players like Lorik Cana and Valon Behrami, who play in the English Premier League for Sunderland and West Ham respectively, switching nationality in order to play international football.

“We are waiting 10 years after the war for something better, 15,000 players are waiting and a community of 200,000 people is engaged in football in Kosovo and hoping for better days,” says Driton Latifi, a journalist and sports news editor at Kosovan newspaper Daily Lajm, who is traveling to Zurich. “Our players are going abroad like emigrants and not proper transfers.”

UEFA has already indicated that if the FFK is admitted, Kosovars playing international football for other nations will be getting the chance to switch nationality in a move that could decimate the Albanian team.

Cana is one of a number of ethnic Kosovars to have played for Albania, while Behrami turns out for Switzerland and the veteran Shefki Kuqi of TuS Koblenz in Germany has appeared for Finland more than 50 times.

The FFK applied to join FIFA, which insists that the matter is only to discuss practical issues not international representation, in October 2008 but the Kosovans need to join UEFA before being admitted to the world body and were rebuffed. In March this year during a visit to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, UEFA chairman Michel Platini declared: “Politics is not my job, and UEFA honours its statute.”

Edmond Rugova, a Kosovar who moved to the US and turned out for the New York Cosmos, returned to the land of his birth in 2006 to take over as manager of Kosovo’s nascent national team.

He masterminded a 1-0 win over 2006 world cup finalists Saudi Arabia but quit earlier this year after the FFK found organizing matches difficult. Friendlies with Qatar and Benin had to be cancelled and the Kosovo national side had to sneak into Sweden in March 2009 and play as the ‘Super Liga of Kosovo Selection’ for a match with Allsvenskan side Malmo, whose squad includes exiled Kosovars, Labinot Harbuzi and Agon Mehmeti.
A weakened Kosovan side lost 5-0 and shortly after that match, Rugova returned to the US.

Albert Bunjaku, formerly the coach of Kalmar FF in Sweden, took over as Kosovo’s coach but Rugova has returned to Kosovo as chief executive of the country’s biggest club, FC Prishtina and hopeful of some progress in Zurich.

The talks are not the first time that FIFA has tried to resolve a political impasse. In September 2007, FIFA invited the football associations in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the Greek-dominated Republic of Cyprus together for talks.

These continued for 18 months but collapsed in April 2009, after a change in government in the enclave, which declared independence in 1982, which went largely ignored in contrast to Kosovo, whose independence has so far been accepted by 63 countries.

2009 Greenland Championships

A match on Greenland's first artificial pitch in Qaqortoq

The following article is also on NordicFootball & photos of the championships can be found at Bent Petersen's site

For the Zeeb family, the 2009 Greenlandic national championships will be a competition they never forget.

G-44 coach Gunnar Zeeb picked four of his sons for the final with Uummannaq’s FC Malamuk for the final but no-one could accuse him of nepotism after his side ran out comprehensive 3-0 winners in Qeqertarsuaq and claim the national title for the first time.

Right midfielder Hans-Jørgen Zeeb put G-44 1-0 at half-time before two goals from his brother Zakorat Zeeb sealed a win. Goalkeeper Johan-Frederik Zeeb kept a clean sheet, enabling his brother and G-44’s captain, Nuknnguaq Zeeb, to lift the trophy.

Only 800 people live in Qeqertarsuaq but a crowd of 600 turned out for the final, which was played on a pitch only 70 metres from the sea.

"There is a wonderful view from the football pitch,” says Jens Tang Olesen, manager of Greenland’s national team, who was in Qeqertarsuaq. “You can always see a lot of icebergs, and many times you can see whales swimming around this iceberg. Sometimes you can see a very special experience, when a big iceberg turns round – that happened this year [during] the national song before the final.”

With no roads between any of Greenland’s towns, teams only play locally except for the national championships, when eight sides emerge from regional qualifiers and converge on one town for a series of play-offs.

G-44 from Qeqertarsuaq qualified as hosts but holders B-67 and K-33, the losing finalists at the 2008 finals in Qaqortoq, were both eliminated in the qualifiers, which saw FC Malamuk emerge as northern Greenland’s representative and E-54 qualify from the south.

ATA qualified from east Greenland along with two sides from the middle of the island, NUK and SAK. From Disko, N48 qualified along with regional rivals KB-84, who won a play-off against another side from northern Greenland.

G-44 topped their group with two wins and a draw to qualify for a semi-final with Sisimiut team SKA, who were dispatched 3-2. FC Malamuk lost their opener to NUK by two goals to one but recovered to win their next two games before thumping E-54 from Nanortalik by 4-0 in their semi-final.

Jens Tang Olesen adds: “There was a lot of talented players on both finalists, who tried to play organized football despite the pitch of sand.”
Qeqertarsuaq had never hosted the national finals until this year and footballers travelling to Disko Island are all aware that the area is the scene of Greenlandic football’s greatest tragedy.

On August 8 2004, three Greenlanders, Karl Olsen, aged 35, Martin Larsen, 40, and 43-year-old Kristian Davidsen set sail from Aasiaat across Disko Bay to play in a veterans’ game in Qeqertarsuaq – but never came home.

The trip only takes an hour or so but Disko Bay is littered with smaller islands and after playing the game, the trio got lost. A massive air and sea search ensued but the three players, who were all married with children, could not be found. The hunt was called off on August 16 only for the three players to be found the following June on Hareoe Island, where their boat had got stuck.

The players had written SOS in stones on the side of the island and built a rough shelter from driftwood but had little chance of survival in Greenlandic winter and froze to death all for a game of football.

Football in Greenland is an isolated, hard game. Not just the short season – May to August in the warmer south, even shorter further north – and the rough sandy pitches that make wearing shorts impossible but also the lack of recognition from the rest of the world.

Like Greenland, the Faroe Islands are semi-autonomous members of the Danish Commonwealth and the winners of the Faroese league title get a share of the €10.3 million pot of cash put aside annually by UEFA for teams eliminated in the early rounds of the Champions League.

G44 will enjoy no such luxury. Unlike Greenland, the Faroes got into UEFA and FIFA before the door was slammed shut in a fudge to keep Spain on side.

Seeing the Faroes gain entry into FIFA in 1988 and the U$D1 million every four years that comes with membership of the world body, the British colony of Gibraltar tried to follow suit in the late 1990s.

Spain pledged to quit every single UEFA and FIFA competition if Gibraltar was allowed to join so the rules were conveniently changed – now all new UEFA members need to be members of the United Nations.

The new rule was not retrospective to ensure that the four Home Nations, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, retained FIFA membership. The Faroes stayed in too but Greenland, who only wanted some financial help for their 5,000-plus players to suppliment the one that recently opened in and not to join the World Cup gravy train, were shut out.

Greenland has just one artificial pitch, which opened recently in Qaqortoq, and there is a shirt sponsorship deal with Coca Cola but the team is limited to games in the bi-annual Island Games, a sort of bi-annual Olympics for islands, but after playing in every tournament since 1989, the Greenlanders missed the 2007 event in Rhodes due to lack of money.

The team did play in this year’s event in the Finnish isle of Aland but two key Danish-based players, Aarhus Fremand’s Niklas Kreutzmann and Pelle Mortensen, who is on the books at Odense, were missing. Kreutzmann was doing his dental exams and Mortensen had gone traveling.

Greenland went down 4-0 to Aland then lost 6-0 to Menorca before an encouraging 3-1 win over 2005 winners, the Shetlands, only to lose a play-off to 11th place to Gotland. “We have no more plans for the Greenland national team just now,” sighs Jens Tang Olesen.

Some Greenlandic footballers wanting to better themselves have gone to Denmark like national team captain Jan Nielsen but like many of their compatriots from an island with a population of just 55,000, they found fitting in hard.

Nielsen had trials with top Danish side Brondby and played in the Icelandic first division for KR Reykjavik but today can be found playing for FC Nanoq, a Copenhagen-based team playing in regional Danish football. Nielsen says: “Talented players come here from Greenland but they get homesick and go home, there’s a big cultural difference. FC Nanoq is to make them feel at home.”

For those Greenlandic footballers still back home like the Zeeb brothers, there is only next year’s finals and the possibility of a place in the squad for the next Island Games on the Isle of Wight in southern England in 2011.