‘Honoured’ Tibet team manager looks back on ‘really great’ CONIFA World Football Cup as players make way home
Players finish 12th of 16 teams and record a first win at the grass roots version of Fifa’s global carnival
The South China Morning Post caught up with Tibet team manager Passang Dorjee in Delhi as the team travel back from London where they played in the CONIFA World Football Cup, an alternative tournament for teams not recognised by Fifa, which finished on Sunday with Ukraine-based Hungarian minority Karpatalya crowned the champions after a penalty win over Northern Cyprus.
On Wednesday, the Tibet team were going their separate ways to their homes across India and Nepal, Dorjee explained, after a “really great” tournament where they played six games in 10 days.
Other players had already left London for homes elsewhere in the UK, Canada and the US – none of the squad live in Tibet.
Dorjee is also director of the Tibetan National Sports Association, the Dharamsala-based body officially formed in 2002.
By then Tibetan football teams had played at an Italian rock festival in 1999 and in 2001 they played their first ever international match against Greenland in Copenhagen.