List of men's national association football teams

Due to the geographical size of Asia, the AFC is subdivided into five sub-federations:

• West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) – represents countries at the western extremity of the continent, except Israel.
• East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) – represents nations in East Asia, plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
• Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) – represents countries in Central Asia, comprising Afghanistan, Iran, and most of Soviet Central Asia, except Kazakhstan.
• South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) – represents countries in South Asia.
• ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) – represents countries in Southeast Asia, plus Australia.

Due to the geographical size of Africa, CAF is divided into five regional federations:

• Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) – represents nations generally regarded as forming the regions of East Africa and some nations of Central Africa.
• Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) – represents nations generally regarded as forming Southern Africa, as well as island states off the coast of Southern Africa.
• West African Football Union/Union du Football de l'Ouest Afrique (WAFU/UFOA) – represents nations in West Africa.
• Union of North African Federations (UNAF) – represents nations regarded as forming North Africa.
• Union des Fédérations du Football de l'Afrique Centrale (UNIFFAC) – represents some of the nations that form Central Africa.

The CONCACAF federation is divided into three regional federations that have responsibility for part of the region's geographical area:

• Caribbean Football Union (CFU) – represents all 27 nations in the Caribbean, plus Bermuda and three nations in South America.[note 2]
• North American Football Union (NAFU) – represents the two countries in Northern America and Mexico.
• Union Centroamericana de Fútbol (UNCAF) – represents the seven countries in Central America.

Note:  Palau has been listed as an associate member of the OFC in the past, but it is unclear whether it is still associated with the confederation.[5] Palau is not a FIFA member.

There are seven United Nations member and observer states which are not members of FIFA or any of its affiliated continental confederations. Five of them, however, have fielded national association-organised teams in unofficial friendly matches or in tournaments held outside the auspices of FIFA. These teams are listed below.

•  Great Britain¹
•  Federated States of Micronesia²
•  Monaco³
•  Palau⁴
•   Vatican City

1: Senior national football teams representing the United Kingdom have only played unofficial friendly matches (usually under the name "Great Britain", though there have also been "Rest of the United Kingdom" representative teams). Otherwise, the UK is represented in FIFA- and UEFA-organized football by the teams of its constituent countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (these teams are listed in the UEFA subsection above). Teams representing the entire kingdom have also competed in the Summer Olympics and participate regularly at the Summer Universiade. See also UK national football teams.
2: Official name used by the Pacific Games Council for Micronesia.[7]
3: National governing body is a member of ConIFA. Was previously a member of the N.F.-Board.
4: Listed as associate member of the OFC in 2002 and again in 2006. It is unclear whether Palau is still associated with the confederation.[8]

Two other UN member states (the Marshall Islands and Nauru) have never fielded a national association-organised football team, though there are reports that amateur football teams claiming to represent the latter have participated in local friendly matches on at least two occasions.[9][10]

Three states with limited international recognition and no UN membership are members of both FIFA and an affiliated confederation and are therefore listed above: the Republic of China (as Chinese Taipei), Kosovo, and Palestine. Both the Cook Islands and Niue are associated states with no UN membership; both are members of the OFC (though Niue only in an associate capacity), while the Cook Islands are also FIFA members. These two states are also listed above.

A further seven de facto or partially recognized states with no UN membership have fielded football teams in non-FIFA football tournaments or unsanctioned friendly matches.[11][12][13][14][15] None of these states, however, are members of FIFA or any of its affiliated continental confederations. The national associations representing all of these teams are members of ConIFA.[4]

•  Abkhazia
•  Artsakh¹
•  Northern Cyprus^2,4
•  Somaliland
•  South Ossetia
•  Transnistria³
•  Western Sahara⁴

1: As of September 2019, the ConIFA world rankings designate the team representing the Republic of Artsakh by its former name, Nagorno Karabakh.[16] The team participated in the 2019 ConIFA European Cup as Artsakh.[17]
2: In addition to playing in non-FIFA football tournaments and in unofficial matches against FIFA-affiliated nations, Northern Cyprus participated in the 1980 Islamic Games football competition.
3: The Transnistria national team, while a member of ConIFA,[18] has only played against club teams so far.
4: Was previously a member of the N.F.-Board.

Historically, the majority of FIFA and confederation members have been sovereign states with wide diplomatic recognition. Exceptions to this rule have included the British Home Nations (due to their seminal role in the development of football), Palestine (accepted into FIFA after the creation of the Palestinian National Authority),[19] the Republic of China (which does not enjoy wide recognition but is still accepted as representative of the Taiwan area), and certain dependent territories, autonomous areas, and protectorates which, on the grounds of their political autonomy, separate status, and/or distance from their parent state, have been allowed to hold membership in FIFA and/or one of its affiliated confederations. At present, FIFA members include 23 subnational and dependent territories, as well as three states with limited international recognition.[note 3] A further ten overseas, dependent, and autonomous territories with close ties to a sovereign state do not have membership in FIFA, but are members of one of its affiliated confederations.

In 2016, FIFA made changes to its statutes to define 'country' as "an independent state recognized by the international community".[20] The statutes further specify that a non-independent region can become a member with the authorization of the national association of the country where it is located.[21] In 2011, UEFA had already changed its statutes so that only countries recognised as independent states by the United Nations could join the organization.[22] Nonetheless, the associations of Kosovo (a state with limited recognition whose sovereignty is disputed by Serbia) and Gibraltar (a British dependent territory claimed by Spain), neither of whom have separate UN membership, were accepted into both FIFA and UEFA in 2016.[23][24] Conversely, the application of the British crown dependency of Jersey to join UEFA was rejected in 2018, on the grounds of it not being a sovereign country as defined by the UN.[25] Similarly, the Dutch special municipality of Bonaire was rejected for membership of FIFA in 2019 (despite having its own membership in CONCACAF), since FIFA regards it as being under the auspices of the Netherlands football federation.[26]

Beyond this list, a variety of teams representing national, separatist, sub-national, ethnic, and diaspora groups have been formed. There are also several teams representing dependent territories who do not have their own membership of neither FIFA nor a continental federation. These teams often play in international tournaments against each other, and in some cases in unsanctioned friendly games against FIFA members (for example, teams representing specific Spanish autonomous communities play occasional friendly matches against FIFA-affiliated national teams).[27] Some subnational and dependent territory teams with no FIFA membership participate in regional football tournaments against FIFA or UN member nations (for example, the Mayotte and Reunion teams at the Indian Ocean Island Games or individual Micronesian state teams at the Micronesian Games). UEFA organizes the UEFA Regions Cup between amateur regional teams from Europe.

The Confederation of Independent Football Associations (ConIFA), was founded with the aim of regularising non-FIFA international football, by having a two-year international tournament cycle, with the ConIFA World Football Cup in even numbered years, and continental tournaments in odd-numbered years.[28] This developed the work of the now-defunct N.F.-Board (Nouvelle Fédération-Board), founded in 2001, which also organized football tournaments between FIFA-unrecognised teams.[29] ConIFA aims to help unrecognised national teams gain recognition, but also to provide a platform for representative teams of regions or diasporas, which do not have a place in a system of international football based on nation-states.[30] ConIFA is not the only body dedicated to organising football tournaments between non-FIFA national teams; other initiatives include the Island Games football tournament, the now-defunct Coupe de l'Outremer for French overseas territories, and the CSANF competitions between (mostly) South American regional and ethnic communities, among others.

In some cases, participation in football tournaments organized outside the purview of FIFA and its affiliated confederations has been a first step for teams who later achieved FIFA membership. For example, the team representing Arab Palestine played in tournaments such as the Arab Nations Cup and the Pan Arab Games for decades before being admitted into FIFA and the AFC. The Faroe Islands national team played in the Island Games football tournament before being admitted into FIFA and UEFA, while the Kosovo national team played in some tournaments for unrepresented teams before joining those same organizations. Gibraltar played in a variety of tournaments against both FIFA- and non-FIFA representative teams before joining FIFA and UEFA.

In addition to the above, other nations have been renamed:

•  Belgian Congo →  Congo-Léopoldville in 1960 →  Congo-Kinshasa in 1963 →  Zaire in 1971 →  DR Congo in 1997
• British Gambia →  Gambia in 1965
•  British Guiana →  Guyana in 1966
•  Burma →  Myanmar in 1989
•  Cambodia →  Khmer Republic in 1970 →  Kampuchea in 1975 →  Cambodia in 1979
•  Ceylon →  Sri Lanka in 1972
•  Curaçao →  Netherlands Antilles in 1958 until 2010
•  Czechoslovakia →  Representation of Czechs and Slovaks in 1993
•  Dahomey →  Benin in 1975
•  Dutch East Indies →  Indonesia in 1945
•  FR Yugoslavia →  Serbia and Montenegro in 2003
•  FYR Macedonia →  North Macedonia in 2019
• French Somaliland →  Djibouti in 1977
•  French Togoland →  Togo in 1960
•  Gold Coast →  Ghana in 1957
•  Irish Free State →  Ireland in 1936 →  Republic of Ireland in 1954
•  Ivory Coast →  Côte d'Ivoire in 1983
• Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes → Yugoslavia in 1929
• Madagascar →  Malagasy Republic in 1958 →  Madagascar in 1975
• Middle Congo →  Congo-Brazzaville in 1960 →  Congo in 1992
•  New Hebrides →  Vanuatu in 1980
•  Northern Rhodesia →  Zambia in 1964
•  Nyasaland →  Malawi in 1966
• Portuguese Guinea →  Guinea-Bissau in 1975
•  Russian Empire →  Soviet Union in 1923
•  Southern Rhodesia →  Rhodesia in 1964 →  Zimbabwe in 1980
• Surinam →  Suriname in 1954
•  Swaziland →  Eswatini in 2018
•  United Arab Republic →  Egypt in 1971
•  Upper Volta →  Burkina Faso in 1984
•  Western Samoa →  Samoa in 1996

Notes