GIBRALTAR: SOCCER/FOOTBALL - Gibraltar seeks recognition from governing bodies

At a time when many are worried about the rise of the couch potato, the British territory of Gibraltar appears to be bucking the trend and enjoying record levels of participation in sport. The favourite sport of Gibraltarians is soccer. From a population of around 30,000, Gibraltar has 3,000 people registered in 31 amateur and around 80 junior teams. Every Saturday, hundreds of children arrive early in the day at the Victoria Stadium. "Saturday is to get the kids ready to come down here. This is where he likes to spend most of his day since he was seven years old and went to a team, because they start when they are young in Gibraltar," says Gary De'ath, father of Sean, a nine year-old player of the Lions. The locals have adopted the names of English teams so that, on any Saturday morning, parents can enjoy a match involving Manchester United, Chelsea or Newcastle. There is real football fever, and that is where they have run into problems. Last month, the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) was admitted as a provisional member of UEFA, but it has taken nine years of petitioning and court cases to get to this stage. A final decision will be voted on at a UEFA Congress in January. Joseph Nunez, the head of Gibraltar's Football Association is hopeful about a decision in their favour. "We sincerely hope that the football association will look at our application on the basis of the purely sporting criteria and if they look at our application on that basis, then I am sure that they will see that there are no sporting objections to our application," Nunez told Reuters Television. The GFA, which was founded in 1895, boasts three divisions of amateur teams, but soccer authorities in Gibraltar say that their petition is not about to claim these sides could compete with Europe's top clubs. They want to join UEFA in order to help the development of football among the children, to get support and training for coaches and referees, and financial help in the form of grants from UEFA. "These are children of 11 to 12 years old. They have dreams - they have dreams of becoming the next Ronaldo, they have dreams of becoming the next Beckenbauer. They have dreams and I don't see any reason why we should not be able to allow these children to achieve those dreams," Nunez said. "I want to be a football player and I want to watch England playing Gibraltar", says James a 10 year-old player of the Combined Services club. "I think that is never going to happen because Gibraltar is only small and they haven't got many people," replys Connor who plays for the same team. Connor's opinion, according to football authorities, reflects the frustrating sentiment that children can experiment if they don't see their skills exported. Many of the arguments put forward against Gibraltar's inclusion in bodies such as FIFA and UEFA are more do to with politics than sport. Spain, for example, fears that if Gibraltar is given recognition as a separate footballing entity it would undermine its claims to the territory. Gibraltar is located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula and shares a land border with the province of Cadiz in Andalusia, Spain to the north. There are also concerns UEFA recognition of Gibraltar would strengthen the arguments of Spain's own autonomous regions, the Basque Country and Catalonia, for their own separate national teams. The Gibraltar government has backed this development, investing large amounts of money in state-of-the-art sporting facilities, which are 100-percent subsidised. In the meantime kids like James and Connor and almost everybody else in Gibraltar, will continue to avidly watch international football in the British-styled pubs located along Gibraltar's narrow streets which have belonged to Britain since 1713.

ITN Source | December 29, 2006

Tags:. .petitioning. .border. .sean. .opinion. .congress