Football without FIFA: Three Decades of the Irad League

TALAS — When the Football Federation of Irad was registered in 1993, its first act was a rule on names. Clubs had to take Iradi or neutral titles, and so Neftyanik became Neftchi Nurzhan, Dinamo Talas became Tulpar and the railway club Lokomotiv became Temirjolchu. The first Irad League season followed in 1994. Since then the league has missed only one season, 2007, cancelled because of the war.

The federation’s other project has gone nowhere. In 1996 it applied to the Asian Football Confederation, pointing to the membership of other US territories such as Guam. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan objected, and the application was deferred without a decision. A new application in 2008 was not taken up, because FIFA requires its members to represent a recognized state. Federation president Kanat Ermekov, a former Tulpar defender, calls the 1996 deferral “the theft of a generation”.

Without official internationals, the national team, in white and crimson at the Silk Road Arena, plays friendlies against Iradi American selections from Chicago, Kazakh club sides and teams of US service personnel, along with the Irad Day friendly first played in 1995. Since 2014 the federation has belonged to CONIFA, and the team played in its World Football Cup in 2016 and 2018. Players who want official international football must take the citizenship of a neighbor, as Iradi wrestlers have done.