Football’s one-week season within the frozen north sees icebergs as a lot as targets
You’d be forgiven for never having heard of Qeqertarsuaq – not many have.
In this small town on the western coast of Greenland, there are days when the sun never sets while the tongues of glaciers sprawl out from the snow-capped mountains and almost touch the settlement. And yet, life persists – 839 people call it home.
Some of those, unbelievably, are studying at the University of Copenhagen – scientists stationed on the edge of the world at the institution’s research facility.
READ MORE: Inside the Icelandic football team battling against a volcanic eruption for their future
READ MORE: National team rejected by UEFA applies for CONCACAF membership leaving fans shocked
FREE 24-page Football Fixtures Magazine inside Friday’s Daily Star
Celebrate the start of the 2024/25 Premier League season with an incredible 24-page fixtures magazine FREE inside this Friday’s Daily Star. Packed with every match, this A5 mag is the ideal companion for another year of high-octane football from England’s best clubs – ideal for Daily Star footy fans.
And yet, come Sunday (August 10), the eyes of an entire nation will descend on the settlement, and the Qeqertarsuaq Stadium, as Greenland’s one-week-long football tournament ends.
The tournament has to be held now – and it has to be short – to circumnavigate the snow that falls on Greenland for the majority of the year – that tends to happen forty kilometres above the Arctic Circle.
Would you like to play football above the Arctic Circle? Let us know in the comments section
(Image: Getty Images)
Every year, ten teams compete for the crown of Greenlandic champion – the furthest north of these teams, UB-83 Upernavik, can quite confidently claim to be the world’s most northerly team.
Upernavik didn’t make it past the group stage – but they can count their lucky stars they weren’t on the other side of the draw. B-67 – a team from the capital, Nuuk – are Greenland’s answer to Real Madrid, having won the week-long national championship 14 times.
They’re also the defending champions – but like all the clubs, they’re semi-professional. Ari Hermann is their star player – he first competed for B-67 as a 14-year-old, having only played on grass for the first time a couple of seasons beforehand.
Hermann had tried his hand in Europe, at Danish clubs Silkeborg and Viborg, but he returned to Greenland in 2016.
And who could blame him, what the competition lacks in skill it more than makes up for in scenery – images of icebergs floating out to sea as the two sides do battle on the pitch are incredible.
(Image: Greenland Football Association)
Football surviving in these conditions is a testament to the human spirit.
However, Greenland want to take their game to the global stage. And the country’s FA has taken tentative steps toward joining CONCACAF, which oversees the footballing landscape in North and Central America.
In the past, they’ve looked to join UEFA, but their application was rebuffed as UEFA could only admit federations “based in a country which is recognised as an independent state by the majority of members of the United Nations”. However, CONCACAF’s regulations aren’t as strict.
(Image: Greenland Football Association)
Greenland’s manager Morten Rutkjaer admitted it would be a dream to play international football. He told the BBC: “It is very important for me that the youth and young people in Greenland have something to look forward to. They have to dream big.”
But he then admitted: “It’s very difficult to play football when there’s a lot of snow. Grass can only grow in south Greenland.”
