"Western Armenia" Football Team

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Milliyet Newspaper, 11 January 2018)


                     Ambitious!

All the football federations in the world are tied together under FIFA.
But there is also a world confederation that is made up of teams that
are not included in FIFA.  Its name is CONIFA, which expands to
Confederation of Independent Football Associations.  CONIFA was
established in 2013 and it includes countries that don't have state
status as conferred by the UN, autonomous regions, defacto countries,
minority groups and some regional bodies.  The teams meet in
tournaments against each other.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyrus (KKTC)participates in this
league under the name "Northern Cyprus".  There is another team among
the 50 members that come under the CONIFA umbrella that catches one's
attention - Western Armenia, whose technical director is Harutyun
Vardanyan, the former captain of the Armenian National Team.  On
the CONIFA website, Western Armenia identifies itself as "the
western region of Armenia that is in today's Turkey."  Also, the location
of the Western Armenia Football Federation is given as being in the
vicinity of Erzurum, in eastern Turkey.


          Don't ask about their hometowns.

The biggest event for CONIFA is its World Cup, similar to the FIFA
World Cup.  The event is held every two years and this year London
will be the host in May-June.  There was a draw the day before
yesterday and defending CONIFA champian Abhazia will play in
the same group with KKTC, which came in 3rd last time, Tibet
and Felvidek (Hungarian region of Slovakia).  Depending on the
results, it is possible that KKTC and Western Armenia could meet in
a subsequent match.



           CONFIFA's Island of Misfit Toys