ConIFA World Football Cup

The non-FIFA affiliated tournament comes to London

- Steve Menary

Apart from Tonga’s brief Italian sojourn in 1991 and sporadic visits by French territories to Paris, Europe is another world for most Pacific Island national teams. But not for Tuvalu. One of the last countries in the world yet to be recognised by FIFA, they visited Holland in 2013 and then London for this year’s ConIFA World Football Cup.

“The government of Tuvalu supported us,” says Soseala Tinilau, Tuvalu National Football Association (TNFA) president of a trip that saw 23 players and four officials spend two days flying via Fiji and South Korea to London. “We received money from them to purchase our tickets.”