Viva World Cup Gives Lesser Known Countries a Chance to Compete

Don't try to look for the Kingdom of Two Sicilies on a map. Don't try to look up Provence, either. But the two countries will be playing in a World Cup, just not the World Cup.

Those countries — along with Iraqi Kurdistan, Gozo and Padania — will compete in the Viva World Cup, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Viva World Cup is an international soccer tournament for tribal areas, occupied countries, agricultural provinces and ancient city-states that was established in 2006 by the New Federation Board.

The contest occurs every two years and is more centered on bringing attention to people who are ignored in their own country or under some sort of plight.

"The goal is ideological," Luc Mission, a Belgian lawyer who serves as the vice president of the New Federation Board, told the Wall Street Journal. "It's about allowing peoples to exist through sport."

FIFA, the governing body in charge of the World Cup, requires that only one soccer association can be recognized from a single country, meaning that enclaves, like the Kurdish population in Iraq who have an autonomous region separate from Iraq, are left unrepresented.

The only notable exception is the distinctions made between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The exception stems from the fact that England created the original international rules and played the first international game against Scotland in 1872.

For the Kurds, they hope to send a message more than anything.

"It is time that people recognized and learned about our country," Sarhang Abdulkhaliq, a spokesman for the Kurdish Football Association, told the Journal.

The NFB is looking at over 200 more provincial regions to join at some point, from places like Quebec, the Catalonia region in Northern Spain, and even Vatican City.

Whether it is for love of the game, or for political recognition, the world of soccer does its best to be all- inclusive.