Following the 2015 CONIFA European Football Championship , in which the Abkhaz national football team was unable to take part because Hungary refused the players a visa, CONIFA announced in July 2015 that the Executive Committee reacted unanimously to the award of the World Cup to Abkhazia. The announcement pointed out that in addition to a very strong application from Abkhazia, the denied visa for Hungary also played a role in the award, as CONIFA wanted to express that they are always at the side of all their members.
CONIFA World Football Championship 2016 (Abkhazia)
Participating teams
qualification
The World Football Championship was the first CONIFA tournament for which a qualification was planned. Originally, the top 3 of the 2015 CONIFA European Football Championship and the 2014 world champion, the county of Nice, were supposed to qualify for the tournament. Furthermore, the winners of various tournaments should qualify for the WFM. The first such tournament was the Niamh Challenge Cup , a four-team tournament held on the Isle of Man . Another tournament, the Benedikt Fontana Cup , also served as a qualification tournament and took place in Chur and was organized by the Rhaetian Football Association.
In addition to the host and the qualified teams, CONIFA wanted to bring a South American team to a world football championship for the first time and thus gave the Aymara a starting place at the tournament.
As some qualified teams canceled their participation and further places were open, the members of CONIFA selected the remaining participants in January 2016.
The twelve participants were divided into three pots with four teams each in order to draw the groups of the tournament. The draw was moderated by President Per-Anders Blind in Luleå on April 1st, 2016. The tickets themselves, connected live via video conference, drew the CONIFA members United Koreans in Japan and Abkhazia , as well as the CONIFA North America Director, Noah Wheelock, and the CONIFA European Director, Alberto Rischio.
In December 2015, Ellan Vannin announced that, due to a warning from the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom regarding travel to Abkhazia, it would not take part in the tournament and instead would take part in the Europeada 2016 in South Tyrol. A little later, Aymara and the world football champions in the county of Nice also canceled their participation without giving a reason.
In March 2016, CONIFA announced that Padania would be excluded from the tournament for violating CONIFA regulations. The Szeklerland moved up for this.
In May 2016, three weeks before the tournament started, CONIFA announced that the Roma had to cancel their participation because some players did not receive travel documents. Padania took the place of the Roma despite their previous exclusion.
Abkhazia (1st title)
Aymara
Ellan Vannin
Padania
Nice county
Raetia
Somaliland
Chagos Islands
Kurdistan Autonomous Region
Punjab
United Koreans in Japan
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Roma
Sápmi
Western Armenia
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Szeklerland
