In Alternative World Cup for Would-be Nations, Karpatalya Beats North Cyprus
Richard
Martyn-Hemphill, NY Times, June 9, 2018
Sixteen
soccer teams from places largely excluded from international sport and
diplomacy — among them Tibet, Tamil Eelam, Cascadia and Matabeleland — are
seizing the chance to play in an alternative World Cup here in the British
capital.
The Confederation of Independent Football Associations 2018 World Football Cup match between Abkhazia and Tibet in Enfield, north London.CreditBen Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
“By
taking part, we can achieve visibility internationally for our people and our
cause,” said Ferhat
Mehenni, the president of the provisional government of Kabylia, a
region in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria.
His team
of Kabyls and their families were subject to threats and intimidation from the
Algerian authorities ahead of the tournament, Mr. Mehenni said, speaking by
phone from France, where he lives and works in exile.
The
president of the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, which
organizes the tournament, said he wanted the focus to be on the games, not
politics. But that is a challenge, he conceded, when so many of the players and
fans yearn for their regions to be internationally recognized amid a severe,
and often violent, backlash from the countries that control them.
Abkhazia’s players celebrated after scoring their second goal during the match.CreditBen Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
This
year’s tournament, the third iteration, is being played in several smaller,
older stadiums on the outskirts of London. Paddy Power, a British bookmaker, is
the sponsor of the 2018 version, arguably a more appropriate backer than the
one behind the 2016 tournament, the United Fishing Industrialists of Abkhazia.
Conifa
now has about 47 members around the world, ranging from areas with fully
functioning governments, like Iraqi Kurdistan, to those seeking to raise
awareness of their political struggles, like the Roma and the Koreans of Japan.
Delvidek (Hungarians in Serbia), Greenland, Barawa (in Somalia) and the Donetsk
People’s Republic in eastern
Ukraine
are all members. Cascadia is a proposed country that includes the Pacific
Northwest in the United States and parts of Canada. Tamil Eelam is the
Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka. Matabeleland is in Zimbabwe.
The first
Conifa World Cup was held in the northern Swedish city of Ostersund, in 2014 — not
far from where Mr. Blind’s family, who belong to Sweden’s indigenous Sami
minority, herd their ancestral reindeer.
At the
time, the organization’s personnel was so threadbare that Mr. Blind himself had
to pump the balls, referee some games and escort injured players to hospital.
But for
the 2016 games, the Republic of Abkhazia, a breakaway region in Georgia, rolled
out lavish hospitality.
For a
nation recognized only by Russia and a handful of others, hosting sporting
events has come to be an important way to lay claim to being an independent
state. In 2011, the World Domino Federation’s recognition of Abkhazia’s
independence, despite protests from Georgian officials, was seen as a major
breakthrough by politicians in Abkhazia’s working capital, Sukhumi, where the
game has a passionate following.
Abkhazians watching the final match between Abkhazia and Panjab in Sukhumi in 2016.CreditDmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times |
One stadium in Sukhumi was newly built for the 2014 soccer tournament, next to a golden-domed church and a monkey sanctuary in which Soviet scientists used to prepare unwitting primates for missions into space. The stadium holds around 7,000, and it was packed every time the home team played in the tournament.
With
intense support from their fans, and after a tense penalty shootout final
against the team from the Punjab, the Abkhazia team became the Conifa world
soccer champions that year.
“The
brilliant triumph of our national football team will forever remain a golden
page in the history of Abkhazia,” said President Raul Khajimba, speaking at an
awards ceremony, where the players were granted honors that evoked the spirit
of medieval times: membership in the Akhdz-Apsha Order.
At this
year’s Conifa opening ceremony, held last week in the home stadium of Bromley
FC, local soccer fans cheered alongside a dizzying global mix of diasporas, and
the occasional political scientist. The hosts of this tournament are Barawa FC,
a team made up mostly of British-Somali diaspora members, their name inspired
by a seaport town in Somalia that was recaptured in recent years from militants
from al Shabaab.
Many of
the crowd had bitter words to say about FIFA, soccer’s official international
governing body, which has been fending off corruption accusations since the
2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia.
In
London, the defending champion, Abkhazia, was knocked out in an earlier round.
But
President Khajimba said he was still happy the team had played. It was “an
important experience for our sportsmen, and it’s a very good opportunity to
take part in an international sports competition,” he said.
Abkhazia fans waving flags during the match against Tibet.CreditBen Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
Alexandr Kogonia, 22, a midfielder for the Abkhazia team, said that fan support for teams in Abkhazia had increased since the tournament and that playing in London would only increase exposure for the sport.
“It’s
very important for me, for us, to be here, because Great Britain is a very big
country, with so much TV, and people and magazines,” Mr. Kogonia said.
Boris
Adleyba, 25, a student from Abkhazia now studying in Moscow, flew to London to
support his team. “We think that such events can help us to represent our
nation and culture, which was isolated by the wrong circumstances from the
whole world,” Mr. Adleyba said.
In the
final on Saturday evening, Karpatalya, a Hungarian-speaking minority in Western
Ukraine, defeated Northern Cyprus, a state recognized only by Turkey, in a
shootout, after playing to a 0-0 tie. Earlier in the day, Abkhazia defeated
Kabylia 2-0 in a playoff for ninth place.
But the
memory of the 2016 championship still shines for Mr. Adleyba. “People in
Abkhazia say that the World Cup in 2016 was one of the happiest events since
1992,” he said.
That was
the year Abkhazia began its war with Georgia.