With continuous sunlight and cold Arctic winds, the shortest season in football – lasting just a week – has just begun on the world’s largest island.
The 54th Green Runland Football Championship began on Monday and featured 20 games with eight teams over six days in the semi-automatic Danish territories capital Nuuk.
Due to Greenland’s harsh climate and complex travel logistics, the season is very short, with several teams located hundreds of kilometres from the capital.
For most of the year, football’s crazy Arctic islands are covered in ice and snow, with locals tending to stay indoors.
However, for three or four months each summer, 24 hours of sunlight and manageable temperatures (5-10 degrees Celsius) see thousands of islanders stretch their boots.
“We meet outside and play football all night,” said one player, Angutimmarik Kreutzmann. “It’s not dark and there’s a lot of freedom.”
The island has around 5,500 registered soccer players, according to Visit Greenland, a government tourism agency.
Despite strong local interest, this year’s championship will be heated following a massive disappointment at Greenland’s international football aspirations.
Last month, Konkakaff – the Governing Body for Northern and Central America and the Caribbean Football – unanimously rejected an application to become a member of the Green Lanland Football Association. The island’s closest geographical neighbour is Canada.
Although technically it is a European territory, Greenland cannot participate in UEFA, the European football federation. Because its members must be recognized as completely independent by the United Nations.
Meanwhile, the global governing body FIFA is requesting the National Football Association to join regional coalitions like Konkakaff before considering FIFA membership.
In other words, Greenland’s hopes of playing competitive international football for the first time remains a dream, leaving only an informal friendly match for its national team. That latest fixture was a 5-0 loss to Turkmenistan, a friendly, played in Turkey last year.
Away from home
Some Greenlanders have denounced politics for Konkakaff’s decision in light of President Donald Trump’s threat to rule a strategic, mineral-rich island.
The US President has not ruled out using military force to do so despite strong responsibilities from the governments of NATO’s ally Greenland and Denmark.
Greenland and Danish leaders say the island is not for sale and they have denounced reports that the US is gathering more intelligence on its territory. This is autonomous, but it relies heavily on Copenhagen to raise public services and infrastructure.
However, National Team captain Patrick Fredericksen believes Konkakuff’s rejection cost money.
“We all know that travelling to Greenland is really costly,” he said.
Other obstacles to the island’s Football Association are lack of funding and limited infrastructure.
For example, the Faroe Islands national team – another autonomous Danish territory with a similar population as Greenland – joined FIFA and UEFA more than 30 years ago. But that was before the Governing Body of Sports introduced the requirements, such as having stadiums with tens of thousands of seats, among other standards.
Visit Greenland says the National Stadium has been “a long-standing presence on the wish list of many Greenland’s people.” But the arena with a minimum of 40,000 seats, which accounts for more than 70% of the population, “sadly, it’s not in the pipeline,” the agency said on its website. Overall, there are reportedly around 20 artificial pitches throughout the island.
The island’s leading football figures have expressed frustration at the rejection by Concacaf, but they say there are still bright spots on the horizon.
Greenland is set to play against the Polynesian Island nation in the South Pacific – to raise awareness about climate change later this year.
According to the Football Association, there will also be equipment for the national amateur teams in Austria and Slovenia, which will be held in Vienna in October.
In the meantime, all attention lies in domestic soccer issues. Last year’s tournament saw the B-67 Nuuk Crown-Crown-Crown champion after a 3-1 victory in the final at Nagdlunguaq-48.
It is the 15th title for the island’s most successful team, and aims to defend it in its first championship hosted in the Greenland capital since 2018.
