Independent Associations Championship

The Independent Associations Championship (IAC), also known as the Independents Cup, is an tournament open to nations outside of the "Big Three" sporting regions of Atlantian Oceania, Rushmore and Esportiva. Created to allow nations outside the Big Three additional opportunities to compete for silverware during the World Cup off-season, the tournament is usually considered equivalent to the regional championships and generally occurs during the same timeframe.

Schottia and Poafmersia are the most successful teams in the tournament, Schottia having contested the first three finals and Poafmersia contesting the 10th and 11th finals, both having won two titles, while Drawkland and HUElavia have contested the most finals, namely four. The current champions are Tequilo, who defeated Squidroidia 3-1 in the Independent Associations Championship 12 Final.

Name
The tournament has officially gone by two very different names over the course of its history: "Independent Associations Championship" and "Independents Cup". The mixed use of these two names has been a source of confusion that culminated in the ninth edition of the tournament erroneously being called the "Independent Associations Cup", a mistake that has since slipped into common usage.

Format
The format varies depending on the number of participating teams, but has always included a round-robin group stage, followed by a knockout stage. The KPB ranking system is used to seed the draw for the group stage, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the knockout stage, with the addition of a select number of third-place teams depending on the number of groups.