See teams "without their own passport" at the 2026 World Cup

The 2026 World Cup will feature teams representing territories "without their own passport", such as Scotland and Curaçao. These countries are part of larger nations - the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, respectively - but participate in the tournament independently thanks to exceptions provided for in the FIFA statute.

CNN International editor Diego Pavão explained that there are two distinct logics when it comes to country recognition. "There are two different logics when we look, for example, at geopolitics, at international relations, at diplomacy, at the UN itself", he stated.

From this perspective, certain countries cannot be divided. However, for football and FIFA, this division is possible in specific cases.

The exception of Scotland
Scotland is one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, alongside England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They have qualified for the 2026 World Cup and will face Brazil in the group stage.

The possibility of competing in the tournament independently exists because FIFA's statute provides a special exception for the United Kingdom, recognized as a country that creates football. According to Diego Pavão, "the United Kingdom, as a country that creates football, has the right to compete in a World Cup with its countries playing independently."

This condition was established historically when FIFA began to expand. The Scottish Football Federation, for example, predates FIFA itself - founded in 1873, decades before the creation of football's governing body in 1904.

The editor highlighted that the United Kingdom conditioned its membership of FIFA on the right of its countries to play separately: "We will be part of FIFA, we will not boycott FIFA, but we want to play separately with our countries."

The case of Curaçao
Curaçao is a small Caribbean island with around 150 thousand inhabitants, located close to Venezuela, and is a constituent country of the Netherlands. Its independent participation in the World Cup is based on a second exception article in FIFA's statute, which allows a territory to play separately from the country to which it belongs, as long as the "mother country" grants formal authorization.

"The Netherlands gave special authorization for Curaçao, which is part of the Netherlands, to be able to play the World Cup separately", explained Pavão.

Unlike other territories with strong separatist movements, Curaçao does not present significant political tensions in relation to the Netherlands, which facilitated the granting of this authorization.

Pavão used Spain as a counterpoint: "Spain would never give authorization for Catalonia to play the World Cup separately", as this could inflate the local separatist movement.

In addition, when Curaçao takes to the field in the World Cup, it will play its own anthem - written in Papiamento, the island's local language - and not the Dutch anthem.

The texts generated by artificial intelligence on CNN Brasil are made based on video cuts from the newspapers in its programming. All information is investigated and checked by journalists. The final text is also reviewed by the CNN journalism team. Click here to find out more.

Source: CNN