World Cup of unrecognised countries: A tournament for teams from across the football wilderness

Players representing the likes of Kurdistan, Somaliland and the Chagos Islands head to a subtropical corner of the Caucasus for the biggest global football competition outside of Fifa

Fans at the start of the tournament holding the flag of Abkhazia (Nathaniel White)

The start of Euro 2016 is just days away but even the most ardent football fan may be surprised to learn that another, extraordinary international tournament is already underway.

Separatist statelets and rebel republics from around the world have dispatched their teams to a subtropical corner of the Caucasus to compete in an alternative World Cup of unrecognised countries.

Protesters in the capital of the Georgian breakaway republic of Abkhazia (IBRAGIM CHKADUA/AFP/Getty Images)

The breakaway region of Abkhazia – sandwiched between Georgia and southern Russia – is hosting the biggest global tournament outside of Fifa, drawing in teams from across the football wilderness.

The competition features a colourful array of squads from semi-autonomous regions, diaspora communities and minority ethnic groups which are unable to join Fifa. The twelve teams competing in this Confederation of Independent Football Associations (Conifa) range from the utterly obscure to the relatively well-known.

Among them is Kurdistan, represented by players drawn from the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, currently in the grip of war against Isis, Somaliland, an enclave within Somalia and the Chagos Islands, one of the last outposts of the British Empire in the Indian Ocean.

Other competitors include Szekley Land, a Hungarian-speaking part of Romania; Sapmi, an area of northern Scandinavia home to the indigenous Sami; and Padania, a collection of regions in northern Italy that the country’s right-wing, anti-EU party, the Northern League, wants to make independent.

While drawn from disparate parts of the world, the teams share common ground: patriotic pride, passion for the beautiful game, and resentment at Fifa’s refusal to recognise them.

“Conifa doesn’t care about politics at all,” said Per-Anders Blind, the president of the football federation, a reindeer owner and former referee from Sweden. “Our mission is to show the world that even if we come from different cultures and different histories, we are one people on this planet.”

The origins of Mr Blind, who comes from the Sami people, illuminate his motivation for running such an unusual enterprise. “I feel I have a special passion and commitment to people trying to raise up and fight for the right to exist”, he said at a press conference in the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, ahead of the tournament.

Nestled on the Black Sea, Abkhazia once served as a balmy, palm-fringed holiday resort for the Soviet elite. Following the break-up of the USSR, it declared independence from Georgia in 1992 and a devastating, separatist war ensued, the overgrown ruins of which are still visible today. Only Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Pacific island of Nauru recognise the independence of the territory.

Its home side is among the favourites to win – alongside Northern Cyprus, Western Armenia and Kurdistan – and has drawn huge, nightly crowds that have packed Sukhumi’s 4,300-capacity Dinamo Stadium.

Last weekend’s opening ceremony in the capital was a journey into traditional Abkhaz culture, featuring an outlandish display of whirling dancers, rousing plainsong, a mock battle involving dozens of armour-clad soldiers and plenty of bombastic flag-waving.

The run-up to the tournament, however, has not all been celebratory. For one, the decision to hold it in Abkhazia has prompted anger in neighbouring Georgia.

“We’ve received a lot of complaints from Georgia. They have been threatening us as an organisation and our members,” Mr Blind said.

While Conifa offers the players of unrecognised countries the chance to play international football, it also provides opportunities that transcend sport. For Hassan Mohammed Abdullah, the Somaliland coach, his team’s participation is the first step in securing a seat at the United Nations. “This tournament is very important for our people,” he said. “For us, it is like playing in the World Cup – we want to raise our flag. We need to be recognised at the UN and this sport is a good start.”

For the Chagos Islands' delegation, the competition is less about sporting prowess (the team have already lost 3-2 to Somaliland, 9-0 to Abkhazia and 12-0 to Western Armenia). Rather, it presents a podium from which to air a historical grievance. The British government forced the Chagossians from their home islands more than 40 years ago to make way for the US military base on Diego Garcia.

“Many people do not know about our struggle,” Sabrina Jane, the squad’s coordinator, told The Independent. “This tournament can raise our history and our cause.”

Many of the team, including Mrs Jane, had travelled to Abkhazia from Crawley in West Sussex, the adopted hometown of these exiled islanders. She added: “I made a promise to my dad – I will fight for him and all of the Chagos community to get them back to their homeland. He will be very happy if he can be die and be buried on the island where he was born.”

The twelve teams in this year’s championship represent tens of millions of stateless people across three continents. The scope for the growth of this alternative championship seems vast; thousands of languages and ethnicities dot a planet carved into fewer than 200 countries. “We don’t know where this will go,” said Mr Blind, “but we’re growing a huge amount, all the time.”

The final games in the tournament are this weekend, and Conifa’s vision is simple. “Politicians are trying to build borders between people. Our mission is to tear these down,” Mr Blind said. “From my point of view, Conifa is a peace project.