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Nationalism is a powerful and seemingly growing force. In Europe, for example, we've seen (in the last twenty years) the splintering of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia into numerous smaller independent entities. From a football (soccer) perspective, this has resulted in their being a lot more nations competing for places in major international football tournaments such as the World Cup and the European Championships.

The influx of new' soccer nations, such as Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Bosnia, plus the inclusion of smaller nations such as the Faroe Islands (population under 50,000) and San Marino (population under 30,000) has led to much expanded qualifying groups. Whereas in the 1970s it was usual for the European qualifying groups to be comprised of four or five teams, these days it's more likely to be six or seven teams. Set against busy domestic fixture lists, this makes it increasingly onerous to fit in all the required international fixtures.

Another impact is that mismatches occur more frequently. Germany versus Andorra isn't a proper contest; it's an exercise in damage limitation from Andorra's perspective. These combined factors of more fixtures and mismatches has caused some pundits to call for the smaller nations to compete in a separate pre-qualifying competition with only the winners allowed entry to the proper Group stages.

This is a controversial point of view. I can see the reasons why the big nations would make such a suggestion but, against that, why shouldn't the smaller nations be allowed the excitement of competing against the bigger boys? Sport, after all, shouldn't just be about winning; the participation is important too. Indeed, for countries that have had to endure a long fight to gain political freedoms, or who have suffered badly from warfare, one of the things that they often most look forward to is the ability to compete in international sport. I think that it would be sad if FIFA (the World's governing football body) was to effectively take away this opportunity.

The flip side of the coin is that there are other nations who are trying to enter FIFA but have so far been denied. I read an interesting article in The Metro newspaper about Football's forgotten men'. Countries such as Greenland, Zanzibar, and Tibet have all applied for membership but have been rejected. This is because FIFA moved the goalposts in 2005 so that prospective new countries need to belong to the United Nations in order to gain entry to FIFA.

Partly, this stance is a reaction to the political tensions that FIFA could find itself at the heart of if it allowed all of the submitted new applications to join. The Spanish football association apparently threatened to withdraw its teams from international competition is Gibraltar was allowed entry. (Spain has had a long running dispute with the UK on ownership of Gibraltar). Similarly, I imagine that China wouldn't be best pleased if Tibet was allowed to compete as an independent entity.

In conclusion, there are pressures both ways on FIFA. Pressure to cave in to the big nations who don't like having to play the smaller nations, and pressure to allow more newly formed nations to enter football's official family. It's not an easy dilemma to answer but, personally, I feel that the benefits of inclusion outweigh the inconvenience of having to play an extra couple of games a year.

Finally, for anyone who is interested in the challenges facing the nations who are currently excluded, there's a book called Outcasts! The lands that FIFA forgot' by Steve Menary that looks like it would be a very interesting read!

Sources:

Metro Newspaper's Football's forgotten men' article, by James Ellis, 13 March 2008.

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