VIVA World Cup Gives a Home to Countries the World Forgot

If you have always dreamed of playing international football, but perhaps lack the skills to play for a real country, have we got the tournament for you.

The VIVA World Cup begins July 7 in Gällivare, Sweden. Or Gällivare, Samiland, depending on your point of view. This competition is, of course, not to be confused with the FIFA World Cup, which fields teams from actual sovereign nations. VIVA is a whole different animal.

The participating men’s teams in this year’s Cup are Sapmi (Samiland), Iraqi Kurdistan, Syriac (or Suryoye, or Assyria), Padania and Provence. For the women, Sapmi and Kurdistan.

What, you’ve never heard of these countries? There’s a good reason for this. They don’t exist, at least as actual, recognized sovereign states.

The tournament has been set up by the New Federations Board, established to represent nations which aren’t recognised as sovereign states. Its members include Monaco (not to be confused with the club side), Tibet, Zanzibar, Somaliland, Romani Nation (representing Romani people around the world), South Moluccas, Rijeka (Croatia’s third largest city, which was briefly a free state in the 1920s) and the Chagos Islands.

Some of the claims to independence are in deadly earnest (provisional member Chechnya, for example), while others are more fanciful. Even Sealand, a micronation set up in 1967 on an abandoned steel platform in the North Sea, six miles off Suffolk, fields a national team, though in their case they have appointed Danish side FC Vestbjerg to play on their behalf.

Great excitement. But it’s not quite the tournament it could be. There will be some teams missing. Teams that, for some reason, don’t want to hoist the Nelson Mandela Trophy (pictured.)

Håkan Kuorak, the vice president of the Sami Football Association, is excited about the competition, but feels that several big teams are missing, such as top ranking Zanzibar, Gibraltar and Greenland. And who can blame him? Who wouldn’t want to watch a meeting between these sporting giants?

Håkan is making the final preparations for the competition that is taking place at two grounds in Gällivare. The opening ceremony won’t be as pretentious as some of the ceremonies that precede large international events today – no acrobats, no synchronized chiffon scarf waving and no historical events recreated through the medium of dance.

But for those who love a bit of pomp and ceremony, Håkan promises a parade of (five) flags, a number of speeches, a couple of joiks (Sami folk songs) and a special appearance by the tournament’s reindeer mascot.

I’m sold. They had me at “reindeer mascot.”

Oh, and “joik.” They really had me at joik.

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