CONIFA World Cup: What’s it all about?

Every Continent tend to have a major international tournament, and as such a group of countries classified as minorities, classless, stateless and areas not associated with FIFA decides to start an international football tournament which is relatively new holds every two years and also tends to be a major successor of Viva World Cup which stopped running in 2012.
CONIFA stands for the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, as an entity CONIFA Football Cup is just five years old and have no full-time employee on payroll.
It, however, boasts of 47 countries in over five continents with over 334 million football fans which are quite significant numbers compared to the more popular UEFA EURO championships.
Conifa world football cup hosting is a bit different because of majority of its members are displaced people and as such it’s not always possible for host countries to hold the competition in their territory. As such CONIFA describe the country with the hosting right as the country that leads the organising committee, whether or not the event is held in the location of the host nation.
CONIFA membership ranges from the politically unstable country and poverty capital of Somalia to the Washington and Oregon states to Catalonia and other who failed to make the tournament, the main objective of CONIFA is to be able to give the few unrecognised nations a chance to participate in a world cup tournament.
Words from Sasha Duerkop the general Secretary “we aim to give voice to the voiceless and unheard”.
The Conifa World Cup first held in 2014 was hosted by Sapmi in which the tournament would be held in Ostersund, Sweden was a strictly by invitation event which held from 1st till 8th of June 2014.
The tournament was participated in by twelve teams, in which Rapa Nui and Catalonia in the Spain region withdrew.
The 2014 tournament held in the then 5000 capacity Jamtkraft arena opened 7 years earlier, in which the arena now has a capacity of 9164.
The 2014 draw included Quebec and Zanzibar in which they had to pull out because Quebec got approved to become a member of Concacaf and FIFA, while Zanzibar was unable to gain visas into Sweden and as such were forced to automatically pull out of the tournament.
The 2016 CONIFA World Cup tournament was a little bit different, firstly it was hosted by Abkhazia and it was the first to implement the means of qualification.
The 2016 CONIFA tournament was a bit sketchy as a lot of confusion was involved. Secondly during the final match of the CONIFA European cup of 2015, the top three teams were Granted automatic qualification into the world cup tournament.
Thirdly there was also a four-team Niamh challenge cup which included Ellan Vannin and Alderney later joined by PANJAB and Felvidek in which CONIFA declared that the winner of the challenge cup gains automatic qualification into the world cup tournament.
The 2018 Conifa World Cup and had more viewers despite the previous tournament being an almost breakdown.
The host of the 2018 CONIFA World Cup was announced as Barawa during the Conifa European Cup in 2017 in which the actual location of the tournament was London due to some factors.
There were some major breakthroughs.
The tournament which normally hosts 12 teams however elaborated to 16 teams and featured a full laid down qualification criterion as propounded by Conifa.
HOST: BARAWA
World Football Cup Holder – Abkhazia
Wild Card – Conifa’s Executive Committee were allowed to give a Wild Card place to a team that has not yet qualified for the WFC no later than 9 months prior to the start of the tournament – this was given to WESTERN ARMENIA. The Committee also had the right to issue a second Wild Card if approved by CONIFA’s Annual General Meeting, which occurred and was given to Tibet.
Qualification tournament – Any member of CONIFA had the right to request that a tournament it hosts be sanctioned as a qualifier, providing it is held between 1 January of the year of the previous WFC, and 31 December of the year before the next WFC, and consists of at least four CONIFA members. The request to have the tournament sanctioned as a qualifier must be submitted at least two months prior to the start and must be approved by CONIFA’s Executive Committee. Three of such tournaments held which includes Hungary Heritage Cup, World Unity Cup, and Conifa Challenger Cup.
During the last Annual General Meeting of the Conifa body in Krakow Poland, Somaliland was voted as the host of the CONIFA World Cup come 2020, which would be the first of its kind holding outside Europe.