The Tibet national football team is a football team that represents the cultural region of Tibet in non-FIFA international tournaments, and is organised by the Tibetan National Football Association (TNFA), an organisation of exiled Tibetans. Many of the players are in exile and are represented by the Tibetan Government in Exile. The team is part of neither FIFA nor the AFC and does not participate in international tournaments. The TNFA was founded in 2001 and its goal is to gain an official status. History The Forbidden Team The first international game against a non-Asian team was versus Greenland, which took place in Denmark. The team was followed by a documentary film crew during the process of forming the team, practicing, playing the match, and events in between. The documentary was titled 'The Forbidden Team'. To form the team, a selective tournament was held in Dehradun, India, featuring all the various Tibetan football teams around India. After the team was selected, Team Tibet headed to Dharamsala to begin practice sessions. Jens Espense was hired by the Tibetan Football Association to coach the team for the match. He had only a month to get the players conditioned and ready to play, despite the team not yet playing at even a minor league level. Moreover, the pitch was in poor condition and only half of it could be used, as it was located on a public road. During practice, Karma Nyodup was working to complete all documentation for the flight to Greenland. A number of players were subsequently dropped due to improper travel documents. After a month, the team flew to Denmark for its first international game, which was organised by Michael Nybrandt. He was also advocating Tibet at a time when the Chinese government officials had made it clear that they did not want this match to happen as they believed Tibet belonged to China. They threatened to cut off all of China's trade with Denmark if the match went ahead as planned. Denmark however, did not back down and allowed the game to take place. On 30 June 2001 the Tibetan National Football Team played its first international match where it lost 1– 4 against Greenland. FIFI Wild Cup (Hamburg, Germany) and ELF Cup (Northern Cyprus) The 2006 FIFI Wild Cup took place in Hamburg, Germany. The first match they played was against St. Pauli on 30 May 2006. They lost