Kuskatan joins CONIFA, reminds us of Latin American potential
A forth North American CONIFA member hints at an expanding future.
As of July 8th, el Asociación de Fútbol Kuskatan (AFK) is one of the newest member of the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA). The FA is based in Washington D.C. but looks to represent the people of Kuskatan.
The follow Q&A was held with the head of the AFK to better understand the origins and goals of their organization:
1. Can you lay out for the reader where in the world and/or what communities the Asociaión de Fútbol Kuskatan is aiming to represent?
Kuskatan was originally the area that covers present day western EL Salvador before colonization from Spain. This area, in certain small towns within, currently inhabit people who identify themselves as Nahuas of Kuskatan, which is commonly referred to now as Pipiles. The name Nahuas originates from the name of the spoken language called Nahuat. These are the people we are presenting with this association.
2. What generally caused members of this community to decide they wanted to pursue having their own association and national team?
We wanted to pursue [creating an association and national team] to help support the community. The language at one point became nearly extinct. We only have over a hundred or so people who originally identify themselves as Nahuas that are mainly elders. They live in a handful of towns in western EL Salvador. For the last decade, local organizations and universities have worked on reviving the language and culture. There are now teaching the language in schools for kids and even holding online sessions for those living abroad. The support in general is still needed for this community. Our main goal is to support the language and culture to survive, fully revive, and spread the knowledge all over the world through football. We want to start from ground up and from youth level to teach the language, culture, and football so the community can grow and kids will be proud of their original heritage.
3. Your organization is noted as being based in Washington D.C., should people expect a mixture of United States-based players with players currently living in Latin America?
At the moment, we will gather players from the Washington DC area primarily. We hope, with enough funding and legal aspects, we can bring in players from EL Salvador. A big wish is for players who are originally from Western El Salvador that play in the professional leagues there. Even a coach as well. We would be happy if [Manager and former Salvadorian national team goalkeeper] Misael Alfaro would be our coach. The long term goal is we build our players in El Salvador through grassroots levels. We hope to set up a youth academy there to grow the game in these towns. Only then, after 5 to 10 years, we can have our players properly represent their towns in Kuskatan.
4. Keeping in mind that during the COVID-19 pandemic, plans are all somewhat up in the air, what sort of timelines does AFK have for when it will start forming a roster, playing games, eventually trying to compete in CONIFA tournaments, etc?
Once the local football leagues here start, we will communicate with the league organizers and teams to make them aware of the Kuskatan national team. We will push to start recruiting players within time. Then start having tryouts and evaluation sessions. CONIFA tournaments are still in discussion but we will have much time to prepare. We communicate with many teams in the area. So if anything, Summer 2021 we will have friendly matches.
5. You’re the first Central American members of CONIFA, do you feel that there is a good chance of more teams popping up (to join CONIFA) from Central America, or other nearby parts of Latin America?
We hope so. This is another task we would like to assist with. Not many people in Central America know about CONIFA and other similar organizations that allow teams to be created. I believe Panama has a team under CNAF. We did pitch the idea to one person who is interested in creating a team from Guatemala. Nothing confirmed, just talk.
AFK is the second of two recent North American CONIFA members from Latin American nations, with the first being el Asociación Nacional de Balompié Mexicano (ANBM) which seeks to “represent native Mexicans”, according to a CONIFA press release.
On July 9th, CONIFA also announced that they were going to sanction la Liga de Balompié Mexicano (LBM), an alternative professional league in Mexico. In a statement, CONIFA said that, “the LBM is the first league to be sanctioned by CONIFA, making it the organization’s first venture into league sanctioning worldwide. The same values CONIFA upholds are held by the Liga de Balompié Mexicano.”
The league has ten professional teams confirmed, with an apparent 15 more being looked into. It is the first time CONIFA has sanctioned a competitive league and provides an interesting new angle for those curious about the new league looking to change things up in Mexico.
With Kuskatan, the LBM, and ANBM in mind, there are now a total of four CONIFA members with Latin American roots. That will make the Latin American portion of CONIFA equal in size to the Oceanic division, which in itself is undergoing a large scale change of the guard. The other half of that quartet comes in the form of the Mapuche football team, representing the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina, and Rapa Nui, which represent Easter Island and are based in Chile.
Given CONIFA’s goal of representing stateless people, occupied nations, political rifts, and ethnic minorities, Latin America would seem to be a major location for further development. The region, which in itself is really several regions, is already well known for its deep connection to football, but also features a vast list of candidates who might want to find a way to represent themselves alternative to FIFA’s CONMEBOL and CONCACAF.
The multi-continental region contains the history of countless pre-Columbian civilizations, on top of more modern political and cultural divisions. Many communities exist in Latin America that still live in a way connected to those roots, through language, religion, craft, and the land itself.
All of this is made all the easier by the fact that many of these communities have already taken steps to represent themselves on the pitch, but simply aren’t members of a larger, global organization like CONIFA.
With CONIFA already making members of countless independent communities in Europe and Asia, with the combined members from the two continents nearing fifty, it seems only inevitable that a wave of interest would develop across north and south America in the near future.
The additional news of CONIFA pursuing sanctioning leagues expands horizons greatly, opening even more doors for their possible involvement in other parts of Latin America.
Further news on the expansion of non-FIFA football organizations into Latin America was made on July 13th, when the Consejo Sudamericano de Nuevas Federaciones (CSANF) announced it would be collaborating with the World Unity Football Alliance (WUFA). This means that CSANF’s eleven members (Aymara, Comunidad Armenia, Esperanto, Fernando de Noronha, Indigenas de Panamà, Juan Fernández, Mbya Guaraní, Mapuche, Rapa Nui, Roraima, and Selección Fueguina) have the potential to take part in WUFA tournaments.
A tweet from International Surrey later broke the news that Kuskatan would also be a member of WUFA. While WUFA’s long term plans are largely unclear, the inclusion of Latin American FA’s within it is still a promising sign for the continued growth of the independent game in the area.
Organizations like CONIFA and WUFA appear to be putting great interest into developing the game in North and South America. If recent news is a sign of the near future, it could be a very exciting time for football in the Americas and CONIFA.
For further information on el Asociación de Fútbol Kuskatan, check out their Twitter and Facebook.
Photo courtesy of el Asociación de Fútbol Kuskatan.