COPENHAGEN: Greenland’s Football Association will send a delegation to the United States next month to begin talks on entering North American soccer body CONCACAF, hoping it will boost national pride at a time of global attention.
The football-crazy Arctic Island, which US President Donald Trump said he wants to make part of the United States, has never played competitive international football.
Yet in May last year, it applied for membership of CONCACAF, the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory under Denmark but geographically part of the North American continent, had for years sought to become a member of UEFA, European football’s governing body.
Now, Greenland has been invited by CONCACAF general secretary Philippe Moggio for a meeting on Feb. 27 at the body’s headquarters in Miami, according to the head of Greenland’s Football Association, Kenneth Kleist.
UEFA requires its members to be recognized as fully independent by the United Nations. CONCACAF allows autonomous territories to join.
The meeting will take place at a time of renewed US interest in the strategically important island and amid an increasing desire for independence from Denmark among the island’s population of just 57,000.
“The invitation is not related to the current geopolitical interest in Greenland,” Kleist said in a press release.
The world’s biggest island, with just 18 football pitches, would be the 42nd member of the continental association if approved. The outdoor season on the Arctic Island runs from May to August.
“It’s about standing tall and showing that the Greenlandic people are capable and brave enough to take on the big guys,” national head coach Morten Rutkjer told Reuters.
The national team is made up of amateurs playing only friendlies. Greenland is planning three matches later this year against smaller CONCACAF nations.
“There is significant interest in playing against us from several major football nations,” Rutkjer said.
Blocked from international football, Greenland will begin talks with CONCACAF
https://arab.news/9cyxh
Blocked from international football, Greenland will begin talks with CONCACAF
- The football-crazy Arctic Island, which US President Donald Trump said he wants to make part of the United States, has never played competitive international football
- Greenland had for years sought to become a member of UEFA
Qatar’s Al-Attiyah wins Stage 6 for Dacia, retakes Dakar lead
- Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win every time
RIYADH: Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah will lead the Dakar Rally into its second and final week after winning the sixth stage in the Saudi desert on Friday to take over at the top from South African rival Henk Lategan.
Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar winner now competing for the Dacia Sandriders, had been second overnight but turned a deficit of more than three minutes into a 6 minutes and 10 second advantage over the 326km timed stage between Hail
and Riyadh.
Saturday is a rest day before the rally resumes in Riyadh on Sunday with seven more stages to the finish in Yanbu on the Red Sea coast on Jan. 17.
Al-Attiyah won Friday’s stage by two minutes and 58 seconds from teammate and nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, Dacia’s first Dakar one-two, with Toyota’s American
Seth Quintero third.
Overall, three different manufacturers filled podium positions with Toyota’s Lategan second and Ford’s Nani Roma third — his first time on the virtual podium since 2019.
Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win
every time.
Friday was his career 49th stage win in the car category — one off the record held jointly by Ari Vatanen and “Mr Dakar” Stephane Peterhansel.
Spaniard Carlos Sainz, father of the Formula One driver and a four-time Dakar winner still racing hard at the age of 63, was in fourth place for Ford with teammate Mattias Ekstrom fifth and Loeb sixth.
American Mitch Guthrie, stage winner on Thursday for Ford, dropped to seventh from sixth.
In the motorcycle category there was no change at the top, although leader and defending champion Daniel Sanders was handed a 6-minute penalty for riding at 98kph in a zone limited to 50kph.
KTM rider Sanders now leads Honda’s American Ricky Brabec, the stage winner after the Australian’s penalty, by 45 seconds with Argentine rider Luciano Benavides more than 10 minutes behind in third.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster all day. Unfortunately, I got a speeding penalty, so that will set me back a bit,”
said Sanders.
“I just pushed as much as I could today but it’s hard to do good in the sand, especially opening. I did the best I could and I’ve got to stop making silly mistakes. I haven’t pieced this first week together so well.”
