Invitation – World

Football Cup 2016

Abkhazia

Confederation of Independent Football Associations

CONIFA

This is the official invitation (Call for Interest) to the 2016 World Football Cup in Abkhazia – the biggest ever football tournament of national teams outside FIFA!

Confederation of Independent Football Associations

Mail: generalsecretery@conifa.org

Cologne, 04.09.2015

Reference: World Football Cup 2016

Dear all ,

the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA) is pleased to invite you to the World Football Cup 2016 in Abkhazia.

Remark: This is just a preliminary invitation (Call for Interest). We reserve the right to put you on the reserve team list, even though you are invited. You will be informed about your participation finally on our Annual General Meeting 2016, which will be on the 09.01.2016 in Northern Italy (Invitation will follow soon!).

The tournament will be played with 12 or 16 teams, depending mainly on the interest of our members. The stadium “Dinamo” will be used in Sukhum, the capital of Abkhazia. Gagra might be used as a second venue. The stadium “Dinamo” is a newly-build arena of the highest UEFA standards.

Each delegation will consist of 25 persons of which not more than 23 can be players.

You can travel to Abkhazia by air: You can fly to the Russian city of Sochi, the venue of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which is located just at the Abkhaz border. The IATA Code of the airport is AER. The Abkhazian hosts will welcome you at the airport and will bring you to your hotel. All costs from and to Sochi International Airport are covered.

All local transport (to and from hotel, training ground, stadium, etc.) will be provided by the organizational committee by the means of buses.

All delegations of the competing teams will be located in at least 3 star hotels in Sukhum or Gagra.

Further information and all details about the set up of the tournament will follow in the end of October, after our delegation visited Abkhazia again and negotiated all further details with the local authorities.

Sascha Düerkop______________________________(Sascha Düerkop, General Secretary)

APPENDIX AVisa information about Abkhazia

To travel to Abkhazia you will need an Abkhaz visa and a Russian multi-entry (at least double-entry) visa. Here is the procedure for both visas in detail:

- Abkhazia visa:We are happy to announce that we were able to simplify the Abkhazian visa process for you in cooperation with the Abkhazian government.All participating teams just need to send their full squad list, including the passport numbers and full names, to the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry will then return “clearance letters” for all delegations, which enables you to enter Abkhazia by showing this letter at the border.The visa itself can then be received in Abkhazia once you arrived.Remark: Those simplified process is only available for the delegations itself. Please contact us for further information about the usual process if you want to bring fans to the World Football Cup. We will post this information in detail on our tournament homepage later otherwise.

- Russan visa:To apply for a Russian visa you will need an official invitation. Once we received the full list of your delegation we will organize such a “LOI (Letter of Invitation)” for you through the Abkhazian government.With this LOI you can apply at your next Russian embassy or consulate. You can find a full lift of all embassies and consulates of the Russian Federation here:http://archive.mid.ru//bdomp/zu_r.nsf/strawebeng!OpenView&Start=1&Count=300&Collapse=135#135

Should you have any questions and/or problems regarding visas you can contact us anytime! We are well prepared to help with all issues and are in steady contact to the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry, which also helps us actively with Russian visas!

APPENDIX BRequirements to play the 2016 World Football Cup

REMARK – IMPORTANT: All the following Requirements are STRICT requirements. Should you not fulfill any of the requirements we hold the right to exclude you from the tournament immediately and invite another team instead!

1. Every FA must return the “Declaration of Interest” (Appendix C) before the 31.10.2015. It must be signed by the president of your Association.

2. Every FA must return a signed tournament contract before the 01.01.2016. The contract will be send to you, signed by CONIFA president Per-Anders Blind, before the 31.10.2015

3. Every FA must pay its membership fees for 2016 before the 01.01.2016. The invoice for the 2016 membership fees of 500€ will be send to you before the 31.10.2016

4. Every FA must be a member of CONIFA before the 01.01.2016. Should you not have applied yet, but receive this invitation, please do so as soon as possible if you should be interested in playing the 2016 World Football Cup.

5. Every FA must send a full delegation list, including the passport numbers of all delegates, before the 31.04.2016. Only up to 5 delegates might be changed after this point and the FA takes the full risk for all visa issues for those delegates.

SELECTION OF TEAMS: This time we initially invited all our members and a few additional teams. For that reason more than 16 teams might return the letter of intention in time. However, only the general secretary is aware of the teams that applied, the rest of the Executive Committee will only be informed on the numbers of teams.Should more than 12/16 teams return the signed declaration of interest in time the general secretary will ask the Executive Committee to set up a qualification scheme to be able to “rank” the teams on that basis. Already qualified teams are of course not touched by this regulation and will have their participation secured as long as they fulfill all the deadlines. Should more than 12/16 teams meet all the deadlines mentioned above we will use the Annual General Meeting to decide on a final qualification scheme altogether. The 12/16 best teams on that basis will then play the World Football Cup while the other teams will be put on the reserve list.

APPENDIX CDeclaration of Interest

REMARK – IMPORTANT: If you want to play the World Football Cup and think it is realistic that you can cover the costs for the travel to Abkhazia, you must return this page signed by your FA president before the 31.10.2015.Should you not be sure about your participation yet, please sign and return this document as well! Should you later decide not to participate you can still give us a short notice and will not cause any kind of negative effects by that.

Herewith I declare officially that _________________ is interested in playing the 2016 World Football Cup in Abkhazia.We are aware of the requirements to play the World Football Cup 2016 in Abkhazia and are confident to fulfill all of them.Should we decide not to participate at any time we will informally inform you instantly.

________________________FA President signatureName of Football Association

This “Declaration of Interest” must be sent by email to generalsecretary@conifa.org latest 31st oct 2015.