Informal talks are already underway with UEFA
Wales are considering changing their name to Cymru in international football after the World Cup.
Cymru – the Welsh language name for Wales – is used by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) in both its internal and external communications and by staff at its headquarters in the Vale of Glamorgan.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the FAW plan to speak to various stakeholders in Welsh football about the benefits of changing the name in international competitions and they have already held informal talks with UEFA.
“The team should always be called Cymru, that’s what we call it here,” said the governing body’s 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 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.”
Turkey also recently changed their name to Turkiye as the country’s government asked for the country to be known by it’s Turkish name and not the anglicised version.
A name change for Wales would also mean and end to being the last alphabetically of UEFA’s 55 national association members during draws and meetings.
“We sit by the Ukrainians all the time and that’s nice because we’ve become good friends with them,” Mooney added.
“But we would like to sit by the Croatians and the Czechs a bit more.”
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