Tournament details | |
---|---|
Host country | Abkhazia |
Dates | 28 May – 6 June |
Teams | 12 |
Venue(s) | 2 (in 2 host cities) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Abkhazia (1st title) |
Runners-up | Panjab |
Third place | Northern Cyprus |
Fourth place | Padania |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 28 |
Goals scored | 115 (4.11 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Amar Purewal (7 goals) |
The 2016 ConIFA World Football Cup was the second edition of the ConIFA World Football Cup, an international football tournament for states, minorities, stateless peoples and regions unaffiliated with FIFA organised by ConIFA. The tournament was hosted by the Football Federation of Abkhazia, with the Abkhazia team becoming the first host nation to win the tournament.
Following the 2015 ConIFA European Football Cup, in which the teams from Abkhazia and South Ossetia were refused visas by the Hungarian government, ConIFA announced that they had delivered strong objections to what they saw as political interference. As a consequence, in July 2015, ConIFA announced that its Executive Committee had unanimously voted to award the 2016 World Football Cup to Abkhazia. It stated that, in addition to the quality of the bid, the decision would send out the message that ConIFA would stand by all of its members.
The 2016 World Football Cup was the first ConIFA tournament to feature qualification, as the competitors in both the previous tournament and 2015 European Football Cup were invited. The qualification process was designed around a number of different tournaments; initially, ConIFA announced that the top three teams in the 2015 EFC would gain automatic qualification for the 2016 WFC. Subsequent to this decision, ConIFA announced that it would sanction a number of friendly tournaments featuring its members as part of the qualification, with the first of these being the Niamh Challenge Cup, a four team tournament hosted by Ellan Vannin. A further tournament, the Benedikt Fontana Cup was also planned to be hosted by Raetia. The winners of these tournaments would gain qualification to the WFC.