The world’s weirdest tournament has faced yet more confusion
Chris Flanagan
Imagine the scenario: the World Cup is just a month away, but Qatar aren’t answering Gianni Infantino’s emails and no one’s sure whether they’re still willing to host it.
Admittedly, that’s unlikely to happen after billions of pounds spent on shiny new things, but it’s been a very real problem before June’s scheduled CONIFA Euro 2022 – allegedly, the grand return of football’s oddest competition.
CONIFA brings together a rag-tag collection of teams representing territories and minority groups not recognised by FIFA – a World Cup has been running every two years since 2014, won by County of Nice, Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, then Karpatalja in 2018.
The latter tournament was officially hosted by the ‘national’ team of Barawa, a Somali diaspora in England, and took place around London – 60-year-old keeper Bruce Grobbelaar played for Zimbabwean region Matabeleland, while Northern Cyprus were cheered on by Turkish folk dancers (above).
It wasn’t enough to win the final, though, as Karpatalja – representing the Hungarian minority in western Ukraine – bagged victory on penalties, in a match refereed by Mark Clattenburg (no word on a new tattoo yet).
The CONIFA Euros took place a year later in 2019, won by another breakaway Georgian region in South Ossetia, after Donetsk and Luhansk withdrew shortly beforehand.
Then things got even more complicated – and not just because Artsakh, the territory which hosted that tournament, was soon invaded by Azerbaijan. COVID put the skids on 2020’s CONIFA World Cup, and then the Euros had to be put back a year to 2022.
Despite the war in Ukraine, Karpatalja have been gearing up for another tilt – they’re
