Romania's Szekelys Minority Send Team to 'World Cup'

The Szskely Land, an area in eastern Transylvania inhabited mainly by Hungarian-speaking Szskelys, has called up its 'national' football team and is set to participate in the ConIFA World Cup in early June.

ConIFA The World Cup will take place from May 31 to June 9 and will also include teams from Western Armenia (today's eastern Turkey), the United Koreans of Japan, Abkhazia (a Russian-backed secessionist region in Georgia), Italy's Padania, Chinese-ruled Tibet and Northern Cyprus.

According to Romanian sports publication Gazeta Sporturilor, the Székely Land team coach is Robert Ilyes, a former player from Rapid Bucharest.

Ilyes, who is currently based in his native Miercurea Ciuc in Transylvania, has called up several Romanian League One players as well as two Hungarian players for the London tournament.

The tournament is being organised by the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, ConIFA, the football federation representing all associations outside world governing body FIFA.

Our latest guide covering the next two weeks is now up. It includes a preview of the EFL play-offs and @CONIFAOfficial World Football Cup. There's also info about how you could get on TV: https://t.co/WywmqBFhBP pic.twitter.com/5FqLja4FMu

— TLFG (@ldnfootyguide) May 21, 2018

The non-profit organisation, established in June 2013, says it supports "representatives of international football teams from nations, de-facto nations, regions, minority peoples and sports isolated territories". Its first world cup took place in June 2014 in Sweden.

Szekely Land is fifth in the ConIFA World Ranking 2018, after Panjab, Padania, Northern Cyprus and Ellan Vannin. It is followed by the United Koreans of Japan.

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