The FIFI Wild Cup was an alternative to the FIFA World Cup, held from May 29 to June 3, 2006 in Hamburg, Germany, prior to the official FIFA World Cup which started one week later. It was run by the Federation of International Football Independents (FIFI).
FIFI was a body composed of countries not recognized at the time by FIFA and those whose logistics or political disputes prevented them from playing representative football.[1] The Millerntor-Stadion in Hamburg hosted all the tournament matches.[2] The tournament was sponsored by a German online gambling consortium called myBet, as well as Goool.de Sportswear GmbH, who paid a combined €750,000 to fund the tournament. The tournament had 2 mascots, Schäfer and Schmitz. Media patronage was provided by TV stations DSF and ProSieben. The tournament was organized by Essen Agencies, Carat Sponsorship GmbH, and Western Star GmbH.
According to organizer Jorg Pommeranz, FIFI had to overcome various obstacles, such as China and FIFA applying pressure to exclude Tibet, and difficulties for players representing Northern Cyprus obtaining visas to enter Germany.[3]
The tournament winners were the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Spectator attendance was reported as “relatively weak”, with an average of 400 fans per match, although this could have been affected by poor weather.[4] Consequently, a second edition of the tournament was deemed to be unlikely, although they considered a 2010 edition to be hosted by Greenland.[5]
Greenland — an autonomous country within the Danish Realm and under the control of the Football Association of Greenland.
Northern Cyprus — an unrecognized state under the control of Cyprus Turkish Football Federation.
Zanzibar — autonomous part of Tanzania but member of CAF. Their manager for the tournament was Oliver Pocher.[5]
Gibraltar — A British Overseas Territory. Gibraltar gained membership of UEFA in May 2013.[6] The country gained membership of FIFA in May 2016.[7]
Tibet — an autonomous region of China.Monaco was invited but withdrew before the tournament began.[4]
Note: Some goalscorers from Gibraltar and Republic of St. Pauli are not listed because there is not enough information on those games.
Ali Oraloğlu Abdallah Juma Ally Alek Mohamed Coaui Maise Lee Cascario Anders Cortsen Kassannguaq Zeeb Çagan Çerkez Derviş Colcu Salum Ussi Hamad Dylan Agrey Morris