New magazine Monocle (founded by Canadian Tyler Brulé, of Wallpaper fame) has a fascinating series of articles on breakaway states and country branding in its September 2007 issue. Unfortunately, you’ll have to buy the printed magazine since only subscribers have access to full articles online, but you can see the photo essay on the breakaway republic of Abkhazia on the Black Sea. It declared its independence from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1994, but so far not a single government has officially recognized its independence. The magazine, by the way, is beautiful and interesting and worth its slightly lofty cover price.

The same issue lists several other non-recognized “countries” that are seeking recognition in various ways, whether it be petitioning the United Nations or through sport. FIFA is one organization that features teams from several entities that are not recognized counties with United Nations representation. Many of these unrecognized states feel that it is through sport (and football in particular) that they can generate support for their nations.

Journalist Steve Menary has just published an interesting book on this very subject entitled Outcasts: The Lands That FIFA Forgot. Read more about it at the author’s blog.

Monocle Article on Abkhazia (subscribers only, but there are some good links included for the rest of us)

One of the most commented-upon entries on Runner-Up is the one on the Viva World Cup, an event for countries currently without representation with FIFA.There have been some issues getting the tournament up and running, and one commenter has helpfully pointed out that there is another tournament established called the ELF Cup. It’s being held from November 18-25 (ie. it’s going on right now) in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and features eight teams, including the host country along with Tibet, Greenland, Crimea, Gagauzia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Zanzibar.

The Wikipedia entry has some good information on the controversy surrounding the tournament.

The original Viva World Cup 2006 is also taking place this week, in Occitania in the south of France, but with only four teams, 12 fewer than originally hoped. Financial and logistical problems plague many of the teams, and the infighting between the NF-Board (sponsor of the Viva World Cup) and the KTFF (sponsor of the ELF Cup) hasn’t made it any easier for these teams to play each other. Let’s hope that they can patch things up so that the next tournament will have a full complement of teams.

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)

Play The Game is the site of a Danish organization dedicated to questions of fairness in sport. They are the group behind a conference going on right now (November 6-10) that is addressing such thorny questions as match-fixing, doping, and the intimidation of sports journalists. Best of all, there is a comprehensive site in English which features many of the presentations. Issues of such importance are rarely addressed by the media and are often dealt with in a PR-friendly way by the major sports organizations, so organizations like Play The Game are tremendously important. It’s not just about winning.

Palestinian National Team

In 1994, FIFA became the first organization to formally recognize Palestine as an independent state, granting it the status of “guest member” and allowing it to field a football team to compete in international competitions including the FIFA World Cup.

This hasn’t been easy. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza made it nearly impossible for players to assemble and practice, and there are few decent football pitches. An internet appeal for players of Palestinian ancestry has resulted in a national team made up of “Palestinians” who were born in places as scattered as Chile and the United States. The very unique struggles of this group of players to represent their nation were depicted in one episode of an excellent BBC2 series of documentaries called Frontline Football (good review here).

Wanting to find out more, I was happy to discover that a film is being made by Chileans Nelson Soza and Marcelo Piña documenting the team’s (and nation’s) ongoing struggles. Futbol Palestina 2006 is a work-in-progress, but there are generous clips available from the web site. You can find out more about football in Palestine at the site of the Palestinian Football Association.

I found out about this project through the fascinating online publication The Global Game. If you’re at all interested in the cultural and political aspects of football, I highly recommend you check it out.