Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-05-13/File:2010 world cup qualification.png

Where is the dispute?
The dispute is about this map :

It pictures the current standings of national teams during FIFA World cup qualification round.

Who is involved?

 * Metropolitan (talk)
 * Jlsa (talk)

Secondary parties:
 * Alanmjohnson (talk)
 * JdeJ (talk)

What is the dispute?
On the map, French Guiana is coloured grey, which means "non-FIFA country".

The dispute comes from the fact French Guiana's football is governed by the French Football Federation, which is indeed a FIFA member. As a result, all Guianans are eligible to join France national football team, a situation which is not hypothetical considering Guianan footballers such as Bernard Lama and Florent Malouda did play in France's team and even met international success in being respectively 1998 World Champion and 2006 World Cup runner-up. The argument used to oppose this stance is that French Guiana benefits of an autonomous membership in CONCACAF.

As such the debate is whether French Guiana should be represented as part of France (thus in blue), or should be represented as not participating (thus in grey).

What would you like to change about this?
I would like French Guiana to be represented as part of France, and this according to the 4 following reasons:

1. French Guiana is not an independent member of FIFA, and the World Cup is organized by FIFA. As such CONCACAF's independent membership is irrelevant to this case.

2. Guianese people are all automatically eligible to join the French national team, which does participate to FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

3. By status, any national football association which is member of FIFA can only be represented by a single national team. French Guiana is ruled by the French Football Federation, and the only national team the FFF can set up is French national team.

4. Guianese people who play in the regional team of French Guiana are still eligible to play for the French national team with no time restrictions. This goes against FIFA rule which considers that any player can only play for a single senior national football team during his career.

How do you think we can help?
We are only two people arguing about it and I'm asking for a third opinion.

I could have asked to Alanmjohnson (talk) and JdeJ (talk) to take part of the conflict considering they did express similar views than mine on the image's talk page. However, I want that third opinion to be neutral because of credibility matters.

Comment from Kitch
I think I will make a note here. French Guiana is indeed an interesting situation since it is an actual full part of France (being an overseas department, hence the same politically as any nominal department on France's mainland), and yet also has an associate membership in CONCACAF. Therefore we have a conflict: It IS a member of FIFA (being part of France), yet it IS NOT a member of FIFA (meaning, its own federation is not a member).

The interesting note is that Guyanese players have played for the French national team, as recently as the 2006 FIFA World Cup. For World Cup purposes, I could consider its position as a department of France as the primary factor here.

Personally, until such time as French Guiana is recognized in its own right as a member nation of FIFA, I would consider it a part of France for World Cup purposes, and thus colored along with mainland France on any global maps for the World Cup. It should be treated the same way as Alaska and Hawaii are in relation to the United States: as sovereign exclaves. --Kitch (Talk : Contrib) 20:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)