Talk:List of FIFA country codes

Flag template usage
Some FIFA pages include flag icons and country names. These can now be produced with flag, flagicon, and country. If a text label is produced it is linked to the country's article. (SEWilco 00:58, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC))

KSAf added by  ¢нαzα93   07:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Straight away I can see a problem: the FIFA/IOC code for Germany is GER, not DEU as it is in ISO 3166. sjorford (?!) 08:54, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Updated...:...to reflect planned changes to flag. It will no longer "translate" from country name to three letter abbreviation, but will instead display the same string as the input argument (e.g. "DEU" → "DEU", "Germany" → "Germany", and "GER" → "GER")  Andrwsc 21:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:FLC
This article could do with some references so it could be nominated as a featured list. Can anyone help? -- ALoan (Talk) 00:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Removal of various offshore islands from the 'non-member' list
I have removed Anglesey, which is a district of Wales; Herm, which is a part of Guernsey (and which, with a population of around fifty, might find it difficult to field a team!); and Orkney and Shetland, which have a degree of independent identity but are nevertheless districts of Scotland. A number of other islands or islands group remain, although anomalously; e.g. Svalbard, Guadeloupe. Ariwara 20:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about Svalbard, but Guadeloupe, Martinique, Sint Marteen and Saint-Martin, despite being small islands, are members of CONCACAF, and take part in all CONCACAF official competitions, so their presence in this list can't be considered anomalous. What I think it's kind of strange is the presence of Vatican City, since I can't imagine Vatican assembling a team to play an international football game... --201.51.39.202 13:51, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Happened once: Vatican-Monaco 0-0. So, the Holy See is still unbeaten :)


 * If FIFA assigns trigrammes for these places, don't they have to be included? As someone pointed out, Vatican City has played.  See this site for some information on unrecognized "national" teams.  Anglesey is listed, as are Alderney and Sark (also parts of Guernsey), as well as numerous others. Oz Lawyer  01:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * FIFA assigns the trigrammes to their members only.

Linked codes
Can I ask what is the point of linking the codes? In many cases, they don't link to anything relevant. For example LES, for Lesotho, links to the disambiguation page for LES, which doesn't even point to Lesotho! If the codes were to be linked to anything useful, I imagine it would be to the country, which is already linked from the first column. I suggest delinking them all. —johndburger 01:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Links to teams
I think the links should point to the teams (i.e. Brazil's link should point to Brazil national football team instead of Brazil), since the trigrammes refer to the teams, not to the countries. Does anyone agree? --BLOGuil 00:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a sensible idea. --CronopioFlotante 06:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Non-FIFA member flags
I updated some flags to those at this site. They're obviously not official flags of the places, but if they're what the teams play under, then they should be the flags shown. Oz Lawyer  01:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Also updated NCLf with the flag they play under, [[Image:Flag of New Caledonia.svg|20px]]. You can also see the flag on this page about the indigenous people of the island. Oz Lawyer  01:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * In case anyone questions these changes, the site I got this information from is pretty good. It has the actual logos of most of the national football federations, and player lineup for many obscure teams, so it looks like they've done their homework. Oz Lawyer  01:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hrm... I guess FIFA would know better for New Caledonia, and it shows the French flag.  I guess I won't object if someone changes that one back. Oz Lawyer  02:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

FIFA codes for non-FIFA members?
If FIFA does not acknowledge a national team as authorised representatives, then does it really allocate them a trigramme code? Can anybody cite a FIFA source for the codes of its non members? If not, then I suspect that what we have is a guess at what those codes would be if they were to be issued one, which is, of course, purely speculative and inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Kevin McE 11:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * More than a month later, no-one has tried to justify these codes as having anything to do with FIFA, so I am deleting the section. If anyone wishes to restore it, they should provide a reference that establishes that FIFA actively uses these codes to refer to these national associations. Kevin McE 22:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is an example of the need to list those codes: some teams are not members of FIFA yet, although they might be members of their respective association. Zanzibar is one such side, and the Zanzibar clubs are listed as (ZAN) as you can see on that page from FIFA, which infers that FIFA uses these codes when necessary. I'm restoring the section. TRNCFootball 03:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's interesting, but it's really an AFP article reproduced on a FIFA information site - rather than FIFA information itself (should we say the code for Equatorial Guinea is GEQ not EQG - because that's what the article you show here says). Despite that, there are a number of "non-FIFA members" who should be listed because either FIFA use their designations explicitly in results lists (namely, MTQ - Martinique) or because confederations use their codes (SXM for Sint Martin and ZAN for Zanzibar - ironically).  Additionally MNE would appear in this list as UEFA uses the code.  Similarly, NCL was used by FIFA for ages before New Caledonia joined FIFA.  I have adjusted the article to reflect these facts.  I am sure some of the other codes can be moved into the smaller table - Réunion for example (some references are listed at Kevin McE's talk page)Jlsa 23:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to add to the confusion - I have discovered some usage by the confederations of these codes - but in general they don't even match what is in the table. For example, Concacaf uses GYF for French Guiana, not GUF as noted in this table, they also use GPE for Guadeloupe, not GUP.  Similarly, SXM refers to both Sint-Martaan and Saint-Martin (it's an IATA thing apparently).  It seems to me that, as Kevin suggested to start with, someone has just pulled these out of the air and put them down as fact.Jlsa 03:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I suspect we may have a naming issue. The article suggests that it is a list of FIFA country codes, which implies that it should be the codes that FIFA uses for any country.  The only meaningful list, I would suggest, is a list of FIFA trigrammes that it applies to its members. That some literature distributed, but not originated, by FIFA happens to use a code is not relevant.  FIFA does not apply "country codes", it applies codes to its members; it might sometimes use other popular abbreviations of non-member nations, but they are not "FIFA codes". Kevin McE 23:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. It is "FIFA country codes" not "Codes of FIFA member countries".  At least two other countries would need to be on the first list - namely Réunion and Martinique because their (respectively) referees and womens team have had codes used by FIFA in its communications (or database).  You could  easily delete all the "other" codes (some of which are at best spurious but most probably made up or wrong), but there is a grey area of non-FIFA members that come into contact with FIFA.  The other Concacaf (and I could extend out to OFC sides quite easily) members are in that areaJlsa 12:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Confederation level codes
While this page refers directly to FIFA, it may still be the best place to list those codes that are used specifically by the continental confederations - either for all countries (adding an additional column to the main table) or specifically to note differences. It would appear excessive to create new pages for each confederation, and this page would remain the sort of page that people would refer to for this sort of information. There are a number of differences, both in the case of UEFA (Kazakhstan KZK), the AFC (Bahrain BRN), and probably others. Any comments.Jlsa 00:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

IRE or ROI
Ireland's Code is IRE but on Sky it's ROI. Why? Clyde1998 18:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Irelands's code is actually IRL, not IRE. However, the full name used by FIFA is "Republic of Ireland", so presumably "Sky" is abbreviating that instead of using the FIFA code.  (Who or what is "Sky", by the way?)  Andrwsc 18:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sky Sports? —MC 19:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Introduction
When were these codes introduced? Fasach Nua (talk) 23:40, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Code of FR Yugoslavia?
Why isn't the code of the FR Yugoslavia listed as an obsolete code, with it's correspondant flag? I can't remember if the code changed, but: 1) for the purpose of Wikipedia, I've seen we're not considering Yugoslavia and FR Yugoslavia as the same team, even when FIFA does; and 2) even when the code hasn't changed (I repeat I'm not sure on this), the flag and the country name has, as well as it's territory. It may be helpful to enlist this difference here, but I'm not exactly sure about the best way of doing it. Ideas?Ipsumesse (talk) 18:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Link to men's national teams
It seems inappropriate that the links here are to the men's national team for each nation. FIFA do not use the code AUS (for example) to refer only to, but also to various other representative sides put forward by the member association. It is arguably sexist, ageist and even rulesist (prefering 11 a side over futsal and beach football) to give this link instead of one to the national federation. It is the federations that are members of FIFA, not teams. Kevin McE (talk) 16:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge notice
I've created List of FIFA Member Associations based on a FIFA document, which contains additional data. -- Matthead Discuß   20:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This discussion is actually at Talk:Association football around the world. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 05:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

FIFA code of East Germany
Hi! I think the code DDR for East Germany is wrong. The code used for this country is GDR. See FIFA.com database about teams for the 1974 FIFA World Cup.

Best regards! --Simy69 (talk) 10:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ireland (IFA)
FIFA uses EIR for the pre-partition IFA team, thought I'd say this before anyone thinks it's unsourced. (Tick the 'Show all matches' box )  VEO one five 13:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

FIFA code of Dutch East Indies
Hi! I think the code DEI for Dutch East Indies is wrong. The code used for this country is INH. See FIFA.com (section FIFA World Cup™ ranking by tournament on page 20) or FIFA.com (see match played on 05/06/1938 vs HUN).

Best regards! --Simy69 (talk) 09:06, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

League Three Letter Codes
Can anyone put together a list of 3 letter codes for league teams? The English Premiere League, Serie A, Bundeslinga? They are widely used but there appears to be no standard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.124.41.173 (talk • contribs)


 * No such lists exists and it would be original research to create that list on our own. FIFA has a standard they follow and always displays the same but there exists no standard for clubs. Qed237&#160;(talk)</b></i> 23:22, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced info
The list of obsolete country codes is highly unsourced. Someone should check this out. Regards. Ipsumesse (talk) 14:50, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Regional codes
Some codes may differ from Fifa and the Continental Federation, such as Kosovo, where FIFA uses  while UEFA uses. The FIFA and UEFA codes were easy to find when used in the address field, but the other federations are difficult though. Anyone know where I can find these? DenSportgladeSkåningen (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

CZE & TUR
Shouldn't the nation short form names of Czech Republic & Turkey now be changed to the newer "Czechia" and "Türkiye", respectively? 31.94.9.110 (talk) 09:45, 6 October 2023 (UTC)