Greenland football wants world stage, with or without Trump
January 10, 2025
The Cook Islands, San Marino, Macau, Aruba, American Samoa and Liechtenstein. All these countries, whether recognized by the United Nations or not, have the chance to play at the World Cup, no matter how unlikely. But that's not the case for Greenland.
The vast island is home to 57,000 people and some of the most extreme weather on the planet, with about 80% of its landmass made up of an ice sheet. Such conditions make outdoor sports, such as football, impossible for 10 months of the year, even on artificial pitches. But, despite the popularity of indoor sports like handball, futsal (small sided indoor football) and badminton, football is number one. How so?
"The Greenlandic sports system is a mirror of the Danish system,” Professor Ramus Storm of the Danish Institute for Sports Studies, told DW. "They have a structure with sports federations and different sports get a large amount of public subsidies from Denmark. So they are, relative to their size, quite well financed."
Top-level football looks impossible
Nevertheless, the climate of the country, and the difficulty of travel within it, makes progress at the top level impossible.
"There are very, very limited possibilities to develop an elite football team in Greenland,” said Storm, who has written extensively on sport in Greenland and traveled to the country to study it.
"If you took the best players, move them to Denmark and have them participating in in the tournaments in Denmark, they might be able to develop a more continuous training situation, could perhaps level up a bit. But to do that in Greenland is close to impossible."
Those that do show promise at a sport will usually have to move to Denmark to fulfil their potential. A handful of Greenland-born footballers have made it to the top level, most notably ex-Chelsea and Ajax player Jesper Gronkjaer, who was born in Greenland before moving away as an infant. Gronkjaer won 80 caps for Denmark, with all Greenlanders eligible to play for Denmark automatically.
The pathways are a little easier in handball, futsal and sports where money from the Danish system can help with indoor facilities in Greenland. But wintersports are not as common in Greenland as some might imagine. The climate is too harsh even for skiing or other snow sports for most of the year.
Success easier in other sports
Despite their current status as an autonomous Danish territory, Greenland do have a national team in a number of sports. They have qualified for the men's and women's World Handball Championship in the past and compete in international futsal tournaments. But football's status as a global sport means that entry to FIFA is the big prize for sport in the country.
While Greenland is tied to Denmark, it is geographically closer to North America. As such, the country are trying to be recognized by CONCACAF, the FIFA confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean. It is unable to join European governing body, UEFA, because UEFA only admits countries recognized as such by the UN. CONCACAF has no such stipulations.
"It is very important for me that the youth and young people in Greenland have something to look forward to," national team manager Morten Rutkjaer told the BBC last year. "They have to dream big. They can look at us and see it is possible to be a football player at a high level in Greenland.”
Independence a hot topic
The battle plays into the independence debate in Greenland that has intensified since Donald Trump said the the country's "people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our nation," before his son, Don Jr., flew to the country earlier this week.
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede, would prefer his country govern itself, rather than become a US territory, or remain a Danish one. After saying in a New Year's address that Greenland should throw off "the shackles of colonialism" he added on Wednesday that his government "looks forward to establishing contact" with the Trump administration.
For Storm, the desire to have a football team on the global stage is driven more by "identity and national pride" than any notion Greenland will be truly competitive, given its population and climate. But the same can be said of many nations including the Cook Islands, San Marino, Macau, Aruba, American Samoa and Liechtenstein.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold