Why is Curacao CUW? Explaining country code of World Cup 2026 debutants

Why is Curacao CUW? Explaining country code of World Cup 2026 debutants originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Curacao made history on June 14, 2026 as the team played a World Cup match for the first time.

Dick Advocaat's side faced Germany in Houston in their biggest ever soccer game, and they even managed to cause a sensation when Livano Comenencia scored an equalizing goal in the first half.

Fans tuning into the TV broadcast will have noticed that Curacao were abbreviated to 'CUW' in the score box. The fact the team does not use 'CUR' seems to have caused confusion.

Here is why they use the former.

Curacao's abbreviation of CUW comes from a rather routine application of the rules by the International Organization for Standardization, the body that oversees this sort of thing.

According to Curacao's own regulatory authority, the country was assigned the code 'CW' by the ISO in 2010 after it gained a new constitutional status, changing to an autonomous nation within the Dutch Kingdom having previous been part of the island territory known as the Netherlands Antilles. You will therefore see things like .cw as part of Curacao web addresses.

However, for things like territory codes on scoreboxes, a third letter was required. There is no specific explanation offered by the relevant authorities as to why 'CUR' was not chosen, but the implication is this would have been potentially confusing alongside 'CUB' for Cuba, or the fact that Costa Rica has the ISO code of .cr.

As a result, Curacao went with a 'U' to form 'CUW'.

Curacao is located in the southern part of the Caribbean Sea.

It is a nation comprising a main island and a smaller, uninhabited territory called Klein Curacao, or "little Curacao".

Part of the Dutch Kingdom — hence the number of players with links to the Netherlands — Curacao forms part of a group known as the ABC islands. The others are Aruba and Bonaire.