Chinese Taipei 2

 

Unknown Players
vs. Vietnam | Friendly | 2017 in Chinese Taipei

Let's call a spade and a spade and speak of Taiwan in the following. With the exception of the Western Sahara, Taiwan is the only unrecognised country I have not yet been to, while it probably is also the most visited and easiest to get to unrecognised state in the world. It has a weird status in the world, as it does have embassies in almost every country, but they are not allowed to be called embassies and are instead "friendship centers", "cultural contact points" or similar. The reason for that is the (People's Republic of) China and its "one China policy", which demands that every state in the world shall only recognise either the People's Republic or Taiwan as "China". Given the economic power of the People's Republic, almost all states thus do recognise that.

In football politics, Taiwan and China had a troublesome past, too.  Initially, Taiwan has been a member of the AFC under its official name, which is "Republic of China". That annoyed the PR China and led to the later exclusion of Taiwan from AFC, as the PR flexed its muscles in an AFC meeting in Iran. Taiwan subsequently moved to Oceania, joining the OFC shortly after being kicked out of Asia. It just took two years, until Australia refused to play a team named "Republic of China". They demanded that they play under a different name and that matches are not played in Taiwan, but rather on neutral soil (in Fiji), as Australia does not recognise the state of Taiwan. In the end, Taiwan was booted from OFC as well after this, as Australia was just more powerful within OFC (and was unsuccessful in moving to Asia just a year prior). It took years, until some committee of FIFA came up with the idea of renaming Taiwan to "Chinese Taipei" and thus allowing them to re-enter OFC and later even moving back to Asia and join AFC in 1989.

When it comes to football shirts, Taiwan is one of the few countries that are wearing local brands for decades. In particular, Tor, a sub-company of much bigger and bettter-known Asics. This 2017 is probably one of their finest and, while I already had a beautiful Tor-Taiwan-shirt, I just had to get this one, when the opportunity arose. I cannot remember where, how and for how much I got it, but I am certainly very happy with it.