As a result of the high percentage of displaced peoples who are members of CONIFA, it is sometimes impossible to host a global sporting event in the regions represented. This is the case with the 2018 CONIFA World Cup, with Barawa Football Association representing the Somali diaspora while hosting the event in London. Despite the obvious difficulties for a people abroad from their homeland, it is advantageous both to CONIFA and the hosting groups to have their sporting events in large international cities, London being both the largest and most cosmopolitan location of a CONIFA tournament yet. Drawing attention to the sports of underrepresented and unrecognized peoples is one of the few paths to international validation that is available to these groups, and hosting the event in London will bring a larger audience than ever to the tournament.

It is in the very nature of CONIFA to attract controversy. In providing an opportunity for unrecognized groups to participate in the international community, it also validates those that have extremely difficult and sometimes problematic histories. CONIFA’s 2016 World Cup was hosted in Abkhazia, a breakaway republic from Georgia. Abkhazia has existed in one form or another for more than two thousand years, both as an independent state and as a part of conquering empires. It has, however, been long recognized as a distinct entity from Georgia — under the Soviet Union it had status as an autonomous region within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was absorbed into Georgia, but in 1994 gained de-facto independence in a vicious war that included the ethnic cleansing of Georgians. Only nine countries recognized Abkhazia as a state and about half of those are themselves unrecognized. It is widely considered to be an illegitimate state, and one with a very bloody history at that. The U.S. state department describes the country as a “Russian occupied” region of Georgia. In 2008, Georgia fought a disastrous war in the region, attempting to forcibly re-integrate the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (another CONIFA member). South Ossetia has also conducted ethnic cleansing against Georgians and has displaced more than a hundred thousand people. Still, Abkhazia remains the most successful member of CONIFA and favourite for the 2018 tournament. CONIFA’s vision claims to support international understanding and global relations through the joy of playing football. It is important, however, to recognize that while self-determination is a right for many of the minority groups and regions that CONIFA represents, many of these groups have problematic histories of their own. Sport is never, as CONIFA hopes, simple.

The rebel world cup is a mixed bag in other ways too: it includes, for example, Cascadia, a supposed cultural union of British Columbia, Washington state, and Oregon — more an elaborate joke than an unrecognized people. Other teams, such as that of Iraqi Kurdistan, enjoy fairly broad international support and seem well on their path to independence. Some teams also represent populations separated from their homeland, such as the United Koreans of Japan.

Perhaps CONIFA’s greatest value is in its alternative position to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), a deeply corrupt and problematic organisation. CONIFA, while problematic itself, allows football fans to imagine a world without FIFA, where the sport has a mostly positive political effect on marginalized groups.

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To the modern mind, however, there is perhaps no nation as associated with the car as the U.S.. Ford (and its production line) have changed the way the world travels, settles, and lives.

The birthplace of uniquely American motor sports is in the sands of Daytona Beach, a provincial corner towards the north of Florida, with flat sands that stretch on for miles—hard packed, meaning you can drive on the beach. It was here that National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) began.

NASCAR, as well as overseas counterparts such as Formula 1, are radical in that they have since their very conception challenged conventional notions of what sport is. It is an engineering competition as much as it is a sport; each team is in charge of building their own car. Gone is the athleticism of muscle and tendon—in the automobile, horsepower and reflex rule all.

In its philosophy of steel, gas, progress, and speed, NASCAR seems like a relic of middle capitalist glory, born from the heights of American industrialism. It relies on the myth of endless innovation—faster, stronger, better. But does that stand in today’s America? NASCAR may have lost some of its shine. The coveted 18-35 demographic has largely grown up in a world limping from oil crises and economic recessions, all with a backdrop of a declining manufacturing sector, and very real climate concerns. As more people move to cities and rely on public transit, the automobile may be losing its status as a cornerstone of the American way of life. Perhaps we have outgrown NASCAR, as recent viewership figures demonstrate; the ratings of NASCAR continue to plummet at an alarming rate. Its viewership has gone down by 50% since a peak in 2005.

Despite its current decrease in interest, NASCAR is valuable in that no other sport has pushed the boundaries so far, while remaining somewhat mainstream. If today’s America is losing interest in NASCAR and its promise of progress, what can come next? Will there be a sport so symptomatic of a post-industrialist, late capitalist country, as NASCAR embodied the prior era so fully?

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