Northern Cyprus Wins Soccer Title

An international soccer tournament in Germany ended over the week-end. It wasn’t the big deal soccer tournament the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) runs, the World Cup. This was a tournament of 5 countries that can’t be part of FIFA due to stupid rules and international politics. Northern Cyprus beat Zanzibar on penalty kicks, and players from all five teams joined in the celebration, not because they won, but because despite FIFA, they got to play.

In the FiFi (Federation of Independent Football Nations) Wild Cup were teams from Gibraltar, Tibet, Northern Cyprus, Zanzibar and Greenland. Gibraltar, a British possession, can’t be part of FIFA although Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (all occupied nations, or constituent parts of the United Kingdom, depending on one’s point of view) are. Tibet was snuffed out as an independent state by China in the 1960s, and the Dalai Lama has proved as inept as a resistance leader as one would expect a Buddhist monk to be. Zanzibar was swallowed up when Tanzania was formed at about the same time. Only Turkey recognizes Northern Cyprus as a country, largely because Turkish troops split it off from Cyprus after the Greek coup in 1973. And Greenland can’t grow grass so FIFA won’t sanction any event there (which may just be the pettiest rule in all of sport).

One would think this tournament of the forgotten would be, well, forgotten by the big shots, but such was not the case. According to Filip Bondy of New York’s Daily News “organizer Jorg Pommeranz said FiFi had to fight heavyweights the likes of FIFA and the Chinese embassy in Germany.” FIFA claimed it had the right to cancel the matches – FiFi said it raised the money for the event not FIFA, and FIFA had no jurisdiction over non-members (airtight logic it seems).

Meanwhile, the Communist dictatorship in China had its embassy kick up a fuss over Tibet’s inclusion – typical of the ChiCom Reds, strangle an indigenous culture and then deny them the right to play soccer all in the name of the workers and peasants who the People’s Liberation Army shoots at with some regularity when they get uppity. FiFi told the PRC where to get off, which is more than the Bush administration has ever done.

For five days, in the city of Hamburg, the players from these places got to do what they do. Roy Chipolina, a Gibraltar striker, said, “You have to understand, there are only about 30,000 people in Gibraltar, and this is the most prestigious tournament I’ve played in anywhere. I probably won’t get to play in a tournament this professional again.” He’s not Ronaldinho, or Beckham, let alone Pele or Best or Beckenbauer. But it was his right to play just as much as it is theirs. Shame on those who tried to stop him.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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