The sport of
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
in the territory of
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is run by the
Football Federation of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
. The association administers the representative sides (such as the
men's national football team), as well as the
Ligue de Football de Saint Pierre et Miquelon
The Ligue de football de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is the regional football association of the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. The term can also refer to the territory's football league. The current President is Ludivi ...
. Although teams from the archipelago had already been participating in tournaments of the Newfoundland and Labrador Soccer Association, the organization amended its bylaws in October 2019 to make Saint Pierre and Miquelon an associate member.
Football has existed on the islands since at least 1921, with extremely limited action by local sides against visiting warships. League football has existed since at least 1976, consisting of
A.S. Ilienne Amateur,
A.S. Saint Pierraise and
A.S. Miquelonnaise, which play each other repeatedly throughout the season. The former two are from Saint-Pierre, while AS Miquelonnaise is from Miquelon. Similarly there has been cup football since 1976, though the number of such competitions has varied, with the
Coupe de l'Archipel primarily being a match between first and second of the previous league season while others are formatted more like a group stage. From the 2018-19 season, the league sent a team into the
Coupe de France, with two knockout rounds played to determine which team the territory would send. They therefore enter the third round of the preliminary qualification, though it varies which region they then play in.
No corresponding women's league appears to exist, though photos suggest that girls train alongside their male counterparts at youth level. A women's youth representative side has competed locally, with victory in the 2016 Newfoundland and Labrador U15 Girls Cup. However, further evidence of women's football is limited.
The national team competed twice in the
Coupe de l'Outre-Mer
La Coupe de l'Outre-Mer de football ( en, The Overseas Football Cup) was a biennial football competition that was created in 2008. It was designed to have the national football teams of the overseas departments and territories of France play agai ...
, in 2010 and 2012, but otherwise has not been in any international competition, though with support from the
French Football Federation
The French Football Federation ( FFF; french: Fédération Française de Football) is the governing body of football in France. It also includes the overseas departments ( Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion), the over ...
they have reportedly applied for
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typese ...
membership.
As of July 2022, there has been no further information on this front.
References
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