Bermuda’s footballers will not have to face a trip to frozen Greenland in the near future after the country’s application to join Concacaf was rejected.

The world's largest island to have never played competitive international football, has a population of 57,000 and is sovereign territory of Denmark but is geographically part of North America.

The Greenlandic Football Association made the application to Concacaf because they are unable to join Uefa, which only admits countries recognised by the United Nations, but there is no such rule in the constitution of Concacaf, which governs North and Central America and the Caribbean.

At the moment Greenland play in non-Fifa sanctioned friendlies but their hopes of playing competitive international football for the first time were ended at a Concacaf meeting held in Miami just days before the Gold Cup.

"Based on a thorough assessment conducted by the Concacaf administration and Council, and in accordance with the Concacaf statutes, the member associations reviewed the membership application submitted by the Greenlandic Football Association and unanimously rejected it," said a Concacaf statement.

Greenland is greater than the size of western Europe, but more than 80 per cent of its land mass is covered by sheet ice.

The country has 76 football clubs and 5,500 registered players, around ten per cent of the population, but football can only be played outside for five months of the year and on gravel pitches or artificial turf because of Arctic conditions.

US president Donald Trump recently made a number of speeches stating that he wants to take control of the territory, which was met with condemnation from both Greenland and Denmark.