CONCACAF dream
After French Cup entry, CONCACAF membership is next
“The process has started. The bodies of the FFF must meet its president to discuss our integration. I hope to have news for the month of May 2020” Herve Huet on joining CONCACAF
France’s last remaining territory in North America, the tiny island chain of St Pierre & Miquelon, wants to join CONCACAF, despite the islands having a population of less than 6,000 and limited opportunities for the three clubs which have contested the local league since 1976.
Junior sides take a boat to compete in Canada’s Newfoundland Cup and a side from the islands did go to Paris to compete in the Overseas Cup, but that ended in 2012.
Clubs from other French holdings, from Tahiti to the Caribbean, have played in the Coupe de France for years, but attempts to enter a club from St Pierre & Miquelon had always been rebuffed – until the French Football Federation (FFF) finally relented last season.
AS Saint Pierraise beat AS Ilienne Amateurs and AS Miquelonnaise in a domestic qualifying competition to take the islands’ first-ever place in the tournament, but ambitions were realistic. As Herve Huet, president of the domestic league, explains: “[Our sides’] integration is done in the third round, not the seventh round like the other departments and territories of the Outremer. This is due to our level which is well below other ultramarine teams.”
AS Saint Pierraise lost 2-1 to ALC Longvic from Dijon last term, while this season AS Ilienne Amateurs were beaten 5-1 by FC Lyon. However, the FFF wants to stimulate the game in the last remnant of its once vast North American holdings and the rising standard of the game in the territories was demonstrated in this season’s cup campaign by JS Saint-Pierroise from Reunion, who beat Ligue 2 side Niort 2-1 to become only the second overseas team to reach the last 32.
In October the St Pierre league was granted associate membership of the Newfoundland & Labrador Soccer Association but Huet has bigger aspirations. With new policies in place, a bid to join
CONCACAF is also being sought and Huet says: “The process has started. The bodies of the FFF must meet its president to discuss our integration. I hope to have news for the month of May 2020.”
If that meeting with CONCACAF president Vincent Montagliani goes well, the St Pierre & Miquelon representative side could also be revived.
They lost all seven matches in the 2010 and 2012 editions of the Overseas Cup and further defeats would surely follow in the bottom rung of CONCACAF’s Nations League, but St Pierre & Miquelon’s footballers would at least have been brought in from the cold.