FIFA and Non Sovereign States

[Stuttgart88]

A Kosovan club creatively taking advantage of their country's non-recognition by FIFA!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...uarez-loan-ban

[NeverFeltBetter]

Only loosely related to thread topic, but interesting nonetheless: Crimean clubs expelled from Ukrainian Premier Division after Russian annexation. Apparently they've rebranded and have applied for entry to the Russian system. I know there are plenty of examples of clubs in one nation playing in another, but in a disputed territory (and please don't say Derry...)?

[BonnieShels]

Bizarre.

Bizarre in the sense that Crimea was annexed, surely in order to continue the idea that it was still in Ukraine they would want to keep them in their league. Interesting nonetheless.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Think they're more worried about preserving the rest of the league, though going to be interesting when their League season starts up if the clubs in the east participate or others will go to play matches there. In the current state seems too dangerous. Though sport is hardly a priority.

And on an unrelated point, expect a Kurdistan team to pop up in the next year or so, though probably face the same issues as Kosovo & Palestine in terms of international recognition.
Currently play ball with a couple of Kosovans who say they want their own team and not to be part of a greater Albanian one?

[NeverFeltBetter]

Bizarre.

Bizarre in the sense that Crimea was annexed, surely in order to continue the idea that it was still in Ukraine they would want to keep them in their league. Interesting nonetheless.

I'm only going on some articles I read through Google translate (so, sort of botched English) but I get the feeling the people behind at least a couple of those clubs are rather pro-Russian - the expulsion might simply have been a pre-emptive thing. "I dumped you" essentially.

As for Kurdistan, I'd say they have a better chance of being recognised as their own state than Kosovo, though it would still be a ways off. They've essentially been governing themselves for decades anyway and no member of the UNSC has a major axe to grind with them the same way they do with Kosovo. Turkey's position on them is important - what with that bizarrely under-reported war that's lasted a very long time between the two - but if that was resolved, I'd say statehood wouldn't be too far away.

[TheBoss]

From what I read, the Crimean clubs quit the Ukrainian League when the season finished, disbanded and formed new clubs to enter the Russian League.

[ArdeeBhoy]

As for Kurdistan, I'd say they have a better chance of being recognised as their own state than Kosovo, though it would still be a ways off. They've essentially been governing themselves for decades anyway and no member of the UNSC has a major axe to grind with them the same way they do with Kosovo. Turkey's position on them is important - what with that bizarrely under-reported war that's lasted a very long time between the two - but if that was resolved, I'd say statehood wouldn't be too far away.

Would agree, but besides the Turkish angle (which is far far from likely IMO), and the ongoing turmoil in Iraq, the only other matter of Kurdish contention is in Syria...

[NeverFeltBetter]

Gibraltar application to FIFA was rejected. It was expected and, as with UEFA, they're now going to CAS: http://www.insidethegames.biz/sports...-not-a-country

Don't know how that will go - FIFA rules a bit different than UEFA's - but it means that they won't be involved in 2018 qualifying for one thing.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Good...

FIFA finally get something right. Though told by FAI contact, all about Bl*tter & Pl*tini playing politics with each other.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Well duh. Blatter doesn't actually give a toss about Gibraltar being in or out of FIFA. CAS might (might) make him care, but for now its just more of the FIFA/UEFA bickering.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Er, that's what I just said...

[Charlie Darwin]

Well duh. Blatter doesn't actually give a toss about Gibraltar being in or out of FIFA. CAS might (might) make him care, but for now its just more of the FIFA/UEFA bickering.

I wonder whether UEFA are actually pushing it either, since they didn't want Gibraltar in, or are they just making a point.

[ArdeeBhoy]

See posts #229 & 231...

[NeverFeltBetter]

I wonder whether UEFA are actually pushing it either, since they didn't want Gibraltar in, or are they just making a point.

Now that Gibraltar are actually in UEFA, it would behoove them to support membership of FIFA proper though, right? It's one more vote to canvass for now, and Platini has to have an eye on the top job at some point.

[Charlie Darwin]

Now that Gibraltar are actually in UEFA, it would behoove them to support membership of FIFA proper though, right? It's one more vote to canvass for now, and Platini has to have an eye on the top job at some point.

Gibraltar are in UEFA despite the kicking and screaming of UEFA.

[DannyInvincible]

This piece makes an interesting point in terms of the implications that potential Gibraltarian FIFA membership might have as far as the voting power of the UEFA bloc is concerned: http://www.insideworldfootball.com/d...ifa-membership

As it happens, however, the question of the admission or non-admission of Gibraltar to world football's governing body is not without a certain broader significance, at least as far as the rather recondite world of football politics is concerned.

To grasp why, we need to turn to Article 26 of the FIFA statutes, where it is stated that a proposal to amend said statutes "shall be adopted if approved by three-quarters of the members present and eligible to vote".

Turned on its head, this means that a proposal falls if opposed by a quarter of members present and eligible to vote, plus one.

There are currently 209 football associations affiliated to FIFA, making the minimum number of votes necessary to block a proposed statute amendment, if everyone shows up, 53.

This just happens to be the exact number of FIFA member-associations in the European zone that constitutes UEFA's sphere of activity.

If, in other words, UEFA President Michel Platini has the support of every European FA (admittedly far from a given), and if all are present and correct, then the Frenchman is one of two confederation heads who could conceivably mobilise the voting power to block changes to FIFA's statutes. The other is Issa Hayatou, President of the African Football Confederation (CAF), which, since the admission of South Sudan, has become just the largest confederation, with 54 members.

The arrival of Gibraltar, besides putting Europe back on a par with Africa, a largely symbolic matter, would give the Europeans that extra little bit of flexibility, ensuring that they retained a theoretical veto even if one European member were absent or temporarily ineligible.

I should make clear that I am not suggesting for a moment that such arithmetical calculations have any bearing whatsoever on anybody's stance on the merits of Gibraltar's application for FIFA membership. But this would be a consequence of Gibraltar – or for that matter Kosovo – being welcomed into the FIFA fold.

Blatter doesn't actually give a toss about Gibraltar being in or out of FIFA. CAS might (might) make him care...

Hehe, maybe. Recognition of CAS's role in resolving disputes is expressly acknowledged in both UEFA and FIFA statues, although I suppose neither UEFA nor FIFA are necessarily bound to action by CAS judgments if they simply don't wish to act on the court's findings. It would reflect very poorly on either if they were to flat-out reject a CAS order to act, mind.

Nevertheless, when CAS first declared in 2003 that UEFA's objection (assumed to be due in large part to the Spanish association's political clout and threats) to recognition for Gibraltar was incompatible with the membership regulations of the confederation that would have been in effect when Gibraltar first formally applied for UEFA membership in 1999 (via a 1997 request lodged with FIFA) and ordered UEFA to consider the application on the basis of the 1999 regulations, UEFA were still content to dilly-dally on the issue for quite a few years. At the time of Gibraltar's original application, article 5 of UEFA's statutes outlined that membership was "open to national football associations situated in the continent of Europe which [were] responsible for the organisation and implementation of football-related matters in their particular territory". This article was amended in 2001, with purported retrospective effect, so that UEFA membership would be confined to associations in countries recognised as independent states by the international community.

Gibraltar appealed to CAS again in 2006. On both that occasion and in 2003, CAS affirmed that Gibraltar's potential accession to UEFA should be considered or granted based on the application of the old statutes - CAS stated that "[u]nder Swiss law [by which the court was bound], the prohibition against the retroactive application of law [was] well-established" - yet UEFA denied Gibraltar membership until granting provisional recognition in 2012 pending a 2013 vote amongst all UEFA associations on the matter of full membership. Interestingly, only Spain (for obvious reasons) and Belarus objected to Gibraltar's accession to UEFA in that 2013 vote. Why did it bother Belarus, I wonder?...

I'm not sure we can take it for granted that FIFA membership will or should automatically follow accession to UEFA though, even if Gibraltar does appear to satisfy the criterion in FIFA's statutes demanding that any applicant must first have been a provisional member of a continental confederation for a period of at least two years, nor do I think we can simply assume that CAS will find that FIFA ought to grant the GFA membership either. It is not unprecedented that an association might compete in competition run by its continental confederation whilst being simultaneously barred from FIFA competition; it is worth noting that French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin all have national teams that have long been allowed to compete within CONCACAF despite having never been granted membership to FIFA. Indeed, there is little chance that FIFA will ever recognise them.

Whilst UEFA may have been found by CAS to have acted in bad faith by amending their admission criteria after the GFA's original application, I'm not certain the same can necessarily be said of FIFA. Article 10 of FIFA's statutes on admission (which has been in place and of more-or-less identical wording since long before Gibraltar were granted admission to UEFA in 2013) states that FIFA membership can only be granted to associations governing football in an independent state recognised by the international community. Gibraltar is not an independent state recognised by the international community. The eventually-successful appeal for UEFA membership may well have been legitimately based on a former UEFA statute that would have applied when the GFA first sought accession to UEFA, but there is no equivalent former FIFA statute that might once have existed at a time when Gibraltar first formally applied for FIFA membership (only this year) or that would otherwise have guaranteed accession to FIFA or compelled them into official deliberation because membership of FIFA has, for as long as Gibraltar has been a member of UEFA, been expressly limited to associations that have already been provisional members of a continental confederation for at least two years. Even though the original UEFA membership application was lodged via FIFA, when Gibraltar first applied for UEFA membership in 1999, they weren't or couldn't be simultaneously formally applying for FIFA membership, which, of course, would have been dependent on two years of provisional membership of UEFA. Maybe CAS will argue that Gibraltar's present request for FIFA membership should be considered as if the GFA had been successful in attaining UEFA membership in 1999 - UEFA membership should have been granted then in accordance with the rules then in application, after all - but I'm not so sure we can assume this will be the case.

The present FIFA statues do also state that "an association in a region which has not yet gained independence may, with the authorisation of the Association in the country on which it is dependent, also apply for admission to FIFA", but I'm not sure that this would apply here either. Gibraltar isn't seeking independence nor is it in the process of gaining it. Even if it was argued that it could apply to Gibraltar's case, which association would have to authorise it; the FA, FAW, IFA or SFA? Or perhaps all of them in unison?

As for UEFA, if they really believed in the old saying, "Keep politics out of football!", they'd have compelled Spain to accept having been originally drawn in the same group as Gibraltar for the current Euro qualifiers.

[ArdeeBhoy]

You mean like Armenia & Azerbaijan would be?

Oh and Belarus was because 'they would bring no away fans'...

[geysir]

Jersey have had their bid to join Uefa rejected.
In case Tricky reads this, all the possible 'can't play for the Jersey' jokes have already been used previously.
The most recent precedent of a non UN recognised independent state (Kosovo) being accepted by Uefa has opened a small hole in a can of worms.
Jersey fa will appeal the rejection based on 'if Kosovo can, why can't we?'

I didn't realise Jersey was so well populated, some 100,000 islanders.

[NeverFeltBetter]

I recall Jersey had a chapter in "Outcasts!" about Jersey and the Channel Islands generally. Certainly, they seem to have an identity distinct from that of the United Kingdom, and a footballing culture/tradition that must at least match that of Gibraltar. I guess the key thing is UEFA's opinion of the difference between a "Crown Dependency" and an "Overseas Territory". Though, as far as I can tell, Jersey is more independent than Gibraltar, as they can make laws contrary to those of the UK (though it is "property of the crown").

[pineapple stu]

I think part of Gibraltar's success was because they applied to be members of FIFA before FIFA tightened up rules disallowing that sort of thing.

So Jersey would be disallowed purely because it's now to late to apply the same way that Gibraltar did.