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Against a backdrop of continuous sunlight and cold Arctic winds, the shortest season in football — lasting only one week — has just kicked off on the world’s biggest island.

The 54th Greenlandic Football Championship started on Monday, featuring eight teams and 20 games over six days in Nuuk, the capital of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

The season is so short because of Greenland’s harsh climate and the complex travel logistics, with several teams located hundreds of kilometres away from the capital.

During most of the year, the football-mad Arctic island is covered in ice and snow and locals tend to stay indoors.

But for three or four months each summer, the 24-hour sunlight and manageable temperatures (5 to 10 degrees Celsius) sees thousands of islanders lace up their boots.

“We meet outside and play football all night long,” said one player, Angutimmarik Kreutzmann. “It’s not getting dark and we have so much freedom.”

There are about 5,500 registered football players on the island — nearly 10% of the population — according to Visit Greenland, the government’s tourism agency.

Despite the strong local interest, this year’s championship comes hot on the heels of a massive disappointment for Greenland’s international footballing aspirations.

Last month, CONCACAF — the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean — unanimously rejected the Greenlandic Football Association’s application to become a member. The island’s closest geographical neighbour is Canada.

Although technically a European territory, Greenland cannot join UEFA — Europe’s football federation — because its members must be recognised as fully independent by the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the global governing body FIFA requires national football associations to join a regional confederation, like CONCACAF, before being considered for FIFA membership.

In other words, Greenland’s hopes of playing competitive international football for the first time remain a pipe dream, leaving its national team with only unofficial friendlies. Its most recent fixture was a 5-0 loss to Turkmenistan in a friendly played in Turkey last year.

Home and away

Some Greenlanders have blamed politics for CONCACAF’s decision, in light of US President Donald Trump’s threat to take control of the strategic, mineral-rich island.

The US president has not ruled out using military force to do so despite strong rebukes from the governments of Greenland and Denmark, a NATO ally.

Greenlandic and Danish leaders say the island is not for sale and have condemned reports of the US gathering more intelligence on the territory, which is self-governing but heavily reliant on Copenhagen for funding of its public services and infrastructure.

However, Patrick Frederiksen, captain of the national team, believes CONCACAF’s rejection came down to money.

“We all know it’s really expensive to travel to Greenland,” he said.

Other obstacles for the island’s football association are a lack of funding and limited infrastructure.

For example, the national team of the Faroe Islands — another self-governing Danish territory with a similar population to Greenland — joined FIFA and UEFA more than 30 years ago. Yet that was before the sport’s governing bodies introduced requirements such as having a stadium with tens of thousands of seats, among other criteria.

Visit Greenland says that a national stadium has “long been on the wish list for many in Greenland”. But an arena with a minimum of 40,000 seats — which would represent more than 70% of the population — “is sadly not in the pipeline,” the agency says on its website. Overall, there are reportedly 20 or so artificial pitches across the island.

While the island’s leading football figures have expressed their frustration at the rejection by CONCACAF, they say there are still bright spots on the horizon.

Greenland is planning to play against Tuvalu — the Polynesian island-nation in the South Pacific — later this year to raise awareness around climate change, the manager of the national team has said.

There will also be fixtures against the national amateur teams of Austria and Slovenia, to be held in Vienna in October, according to the football association.

In the meantime, all attention is on domestic football matters. Last year’s tournament saw B-67 Nuuk crowned champions after a 3-1 win in the final over Nagdlunguaq-48.

It was a 15th title for the island’s most successful team, and they will be looking to defend it in the first championship to be hosted in Greenland’s capital since 2018.