Wales football: FAW considers Cymru team name change after World Cup

Wales' national football teams could change their name to Cymru - the Welsh name for Wales - after this year's World Cup in Qatar.

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) already uses Cymru at its headquarters and in communications and documents.

Informal discussions have taken place with European football's ruling body Uefa about a possible change.

"The team should always be called Cymru, that's what we call it here," said FAW chief executive Noel Mooney.

"Our view at the moment is that domestically we're clearly called Cymru. That's what we call our national teams.

"If you look at our website, how we talk about ourselves, we are very much Cymru.

"Internationally we feel we have a bit more work to do yet. So we are going to this World Cup as Wales.

"But I think 2023 will be a year when we have a good discussion with all the different stakeholders - whether that's governments, our own boards, councils and decision-making bodies, staff, club and players.

"We're a very open democratic organisation and we don't just unilaterally decide today to do something like that.

"I would say it's the direction of travel, but there's no firm decisions on it. It's more almost by osmosis that we're heading towards it."

Wales' participation in Qatar is only their second ever appearance at the World Cup finals - the other was 1958 in Sweden - but they have qualified for the last two European Championships.

In qualifying for Euro 2024 they have been drawn in a group alongside Turkiye, whose governing body has successfully requested its country's official name on the international stage be changed from the anglicised Turkey.

"You've seen countries like Azerbaijan, Turkey and others use their own language," said Mooney.

"They're quite strong on it and we spoke to the Turkish at the Euro 2024 draw about it.

"We've also had unofficial discussions with Uefa over coffees at different events. Asking how Turkey did this, how other countries did that.

"We've asked what their direction of travel is, for example is there a movement towards people using their indigenous language?

"What I do know is there's a renaissance of the Welsh language and a sense of great pride in what we do with the culture and the heritage."

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