2020 CONIFA World Football Cup

In January 2019, at the CONIFA Annual General Meeting in Krakow, Poland, it was announced that Somaliland had been selected to act as the host for the 2020 CONIFA World Football Cup.{{Cite web|url=http://www.conifa.org/en/2019/01/27/conifa-sportsbet-io-world-football-cup-2020-somaliland/|title=CONIFA SportsBet.io World Football Cup 2020: Somaliland|first=Dominic|last=Stevenson|date=27 January 2019}} In August 2019 CONIFA announced that Somaliland had given up hosting rights for the 2020 ConIFA World Football Cup without naming a replacement. Kernow had subsequently bid to host the tournament.[https://twitter.com/KernowFA/status/1168214749735247873 Kernow are officially in the running to host the 2020 WFC] Kernow Football Alliance. 1 September 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019. In December 2019 CONIFA announced that the tournament would be held in Skopje, the capital city of North Macedonia with no CONIFA member as designated host.

CONIFA assigns the number of berths for each continent according to the percentage of CONIFA members that come from that continent. Europe has 4 berths, including one for the winners of the 2019 CONIFA European Football Cup. Asia and Africa both have 3, and North America, South America and Oceania have one berth each. Additionally, one berth is reserved for a wild card team. Kárpátalja, the defending champions, qualified automatically. Originally, Somaliland qualified automatically as hosts, but the tournament has since been moved to North Macedonia and no CONIFA member is hosting, so it was unclear whether Somaliland has still qualified.

Not all CONIFA members entered qualification, and in the continents of Africa and South America, an equal number of teams entered compared to the number of berths available, so all entrants from those continents qualified automatically.

The decision by CONIFA to originally host the 2020 World Football Cup in Somaliland was met with criticism by some, with James Scott, the president of Parishes of Jersey FC, telling the Jersey Evening Post that he would not accept the place at the final tournament if his side won the Atlantic Heritage Cup.[https://jerseyeveningpost.com/sport/football/2019/03/07/somaliland-setback-for-poj-fc/ Somaliland setback for PoJ FC] Jersey Evening Post. 7 March 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019. The comments were met with a backlash from CONIFA, who criticised inaccurate reporting and defended the decision to host the World Football Cup in Somaliland.[http://www.conifa.org/en/2019/03/17/conifa-statement-regarding-jersey-evening-post-article/ CONIFA Statement Regarding Jersey Evening Post Article] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211222248/http://www.conifa.org/en/2019/03/17/conifa-statement-regarding-jersey-evening-post-article/ |date=2020-02-11 }} CONIFA. 17 March 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019. The competition was later moved to North Macedonia after Somaliland had hosting rights revoked by CONIFA.{{Cite web|url=http://www.conifa.org/en/2019/08/22/conifa-and-somaliland-fa-an-announcement-about-the-conifa-sportsbet-io-world-football-cup-2020/|title = CONIFA and Somaliland FA: An announcement about the CONIFA Sportsbet.io World Football Cup 2020|date = 22 August 2019}}

On 22 March 2020, members of the CONIFA Executive Committee made the decision that the tournament would not be taking place in North Macedonia from 30 May – 7 June 2020 due to the COVID-19 emergency being seen across the world. On 29 April 2020 the CONIFA Executive Committee announced through its social media channels that the competition was cancelled, with no rescheduling, and the organisation outlining plans to expand continental competitions in the future by redirecting funding from the 2020 World Football Cup from sponsors Sportsbet.io.

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Category:CONIFA World Football Cup

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Category:2019–20 in North Macedonia football

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CONIFA World Football Cup