Greenland has submitted an application to CONCACAF for membership in the confederation, which governs international soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, according to social media posts by the Football Association of Greenland and the men’s national team manager Morten Rukjaer.
CONCACAF declined to comment on the posts or the status of Greenland’s application.
“With this application, Greenland is taking a historic step on the international football scene,” Rukjaer wrote on Instagram.
The application would be a milestone in a multi-year quest to level up international football in the country, as reported in 2022 in Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq. Greenland has a population of just over 56,000.
Though Greenland is geographically part of North America, politically it is an autonomous territory of Denmark. Its path to joining Europe’s confederation, UEFA, has been blocked due to a UEFA bylaw adopted in 2022 stipulating that membership may only be offered to football associations “based in a country which is recognised as an independent state by the majority of members of the United Nations.”
FIFA does not recognize Greenland’s national football team, which primarily plays games against other Nordic states.
If Greenland were to join CONCACAF, it would become the seventh member of the confederation not to be recognized by FIFA. The other six are all overseas territories of European nations – primarily France (Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Bonaire, and Saint Martin) along with the Netherlands (Sint Maarten).
Should Greenland play at home in its capital city of Nuuk, Toronto would be the closest capital city of a CONCACAF nation at just over 1,700 miles (2,800 km) away, with most Central American and Caribbean countries lying at least 3,400 miles (5,400 km) away.
(Top photo of locals playing football in Ilulissat, Greenland: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
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