The World Cup comes to Enfield...

The CONIFA World Cup kicks off in London later this week, and includes fixtures at a number of Bostik League grounds-and at a couple of clubs which will be officially part of our happy band after the AGM in less than a fortnight!

Enfield Town, Carshalton Athletic, Haringey Borough, Aveley, Bracknell Town and Bedfont Sports will all host matches between 31st May and 9th June.

So, what is CONIFA, and what is the CONIFA World Cup? The organisation website puts it thus:

'CONIFA, the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, is the football federation for all associations outside FIFA. It’s a global acting non-profit organization that supports representatives of international football teams from nations, de-facto nations, regions, minority peoples and sports isolated territories.

CONIFA was founded on the 7th of June 2013, and organized its first World Football Cup in June 2014 in Ostersund, Sweden.'

The forthcoming tournament will feature sides representing:

• Abkhazia
• Barawa
• Cascadia
• Ellan Vannin
• Kabylia
• Karpatalya
• Matabeleland
• Northern Cyprus
• Padania
• Panjab
• Székely Land
• Tamil Eelam
• Tibet
• Tuvalu
• United Koreans in Japan
• Western Armenia

If you would like to go, you can purchase tickets here. There are ten matches being played at the QEII Stadium, Enfield; five at Colston Avenue, home of the Robins; four at Parkside, Aveley; six at Coles Park, Haringey Borough; four at Larges Lane, home of Bracknell Town; and two at Bedfont Recreation Ground, home of Bedfont Sports. There are also five matches at Hayes Lane, home of Bromley (and of course temporary home of Cray Wanderers).

Good luck to all those taking part.