FIFI Wild Cup

Last summer, I wrote about the Viva World Cup, which is contested by “nations” not recognized by FIFA or the UN. Now, in the runup to this year’s FIFA World Cup, behold the FIFI Wild Cup, also played between non-recognized groups. It started out as a way to arrange a match between Tibet and the newly-declared Republic of St. Pauli (actually a district of Hamburg that declared independence solely to field a team to play against the Tibetans). Other teams joined in and Northern Cyprus (the Turkish-occupied half of the island of Cyprus, only recognized by Turkey) won the trophy. It was a succesful tournament, despite the presence of only six teams (Tibet, St. Pauli, and Northern Cyprus were joined by Greenland, Zanzibar and Gibraltar). There were more than 4,000 fans at the final, though that did include the members of all the defeated teams.

FIFI Wild Cup Champs Northern Cyprus

Controversy will surely follow the win of the Northern Cypriot team, with many commenters on the Guardian’s report reacting unfavourably to giving any publicity whatsoever to the Turkish “occupiers” of Cyprus.

Report from The Guardian

Report from Spiegel (in English)