In a small village in eastern Belgium, near the German border, there is a football club with "Turkania" in its name and bearing traces of a centuries-old nickname the village has carried: Royal Football Club Turkania Wallonia Waimes Faymonville. Neither a single Turkish player stands out in the club's history, nor is there any institutional tie between the village and Turkey—yet both the village and the club have been called "les Turcs," or "The Turks," for centuries. Behind this curious name similarity lies a 17th-century tax dispute legend and the complex history of Belgium's little-known Eastern Cantons region. A modest village football club competing in amateur leagues carries in its name the living proof of centuries-old local humor and administrative boundary games.
A Name Born from a Nickname: Where Does "Turkania" Come From?
Faymonville today is a village within the Waimes municipality (German name: Weismes), part of the German-speaking community (Eastern Cantons) of Belgium's Liège province. The "Turkania" in the village and thus the club's name does not come directly from an Ottoman or Turkish settlement, but from the "les Turcs" (Turks) nickname that neighboring villages gave to Faymonville residents.
The most frequently repeated historical explanation for the origin of this nickname goes like this: Unlike the surrounding villages, Faymonville was not subject to the Stavelot-Malmedy Monastic Principality, but rather to the Duchy of Luxembourg. In the 17th century, while a special tax was being collected in the neighboring Waimes village to finance wars against the Ottoman Empire, Faymonville, bound to a different administrative structure, was exempted from this tax. Residents of neighboring villages interpreted this sarcastically, and began calling the residents of this village, which did not contribute to fighting "against Turks," the "Turks" themselves. In other words, ironically, the village received this name not for supporting the side fighting the Turks, but for not sharing in the costs of this war against the Turks.
Over time, this sarcastic exclusion label became embraced by Faymonville residents and turned into a source of pride. Today, during the carnival held annually in the village, the region's youth dress in Turkish clothes and keep this identity alive; this approximately four-century-long tradition is considered one of the Eastern Belgium's most unique local cultural examples. The club's "Turkania" name carries this centuries-old village nickname directly, not from a serious Turkish historical connection, but from the community's unique humor and heritage.
An important point to emphasize here is this: The residents of Faymonville have no real Turkish origin or a settlement history extending to the Ottoman period. The region lies entirely in a geography where Walloon and Germanic cultures are intertwined. The "Turcs" nickname is a long-lived example of the kind of "neighbor teasing" seen in many European villages throughout history; in Faymonville alone, over time it rose to the level of becoming the official name of a football club, making it one of the rare examples where a local nickname transformed into institutional identity. This makes Faymonville one of rare instances where local nicknames have become institutional identities.
From 1930 to Today: The Club's History and the 2022 Merger
The club was officially founded in 1930 and registered with the Belgian Football Federation on June 12, 1931, with registration number 1798. Having earned the right to take the "Royal" (Kingship) designation on December 10, 1952, the club adopted the name "Royal Football Club Turkania Faymonville" on December 10, 1953, and competed under this name in amateur leagues for decades.
A process frequently occurring in small Belgian clubs befell Turkania Faymonville: In July 2022, it merged with neighboring R. FC Wallonia Waimes (registration number 4309) to create a new structure. The resulting new club took the name "Turkania Wallonia Waimes Faymonville" and retained Turkania's historic registration number 1798. With the merger, the club's colors were also reorganized to represent both founding clubs: green from Turkania combined with blue from Wallonia. In the first season after the merger, the club competed in P2 Liège, one of the lower tier leagues of Liège province—in other words, it draws attention more through its name and history than through performance on the field.
Such mergers are actually not rare at all in Belgian football; especially at amateur and semi-amateur levels, neighboring village clubs frequently combine their forces due to declining player pools and rising administrative costs. However, what makes Turkania's story special is that even after the merger, the "Turkania" name and thus the village's centuries-old nickname was preserved in the new structure. The continuation of the old registration number (1798) with the federation also shows that the club's institutional memory, independent of field performance, is carefully preserved. This is also an indicator that in Belgian small clubs, identity is measured more by the name and history carried rather than by on-field results.
A Village in the Cultural Mosaic of the Eastern Cantons
What makes Faymonville's story truly interesting is that it is not an isolated case. Belgium's German-speaking Eastern Cantons—Eupen, Malmedy, Sankt Vith, and surrounding villages—is historically a geography that has repeatedly changed hands, a place where borders between Prussia, Germany, and Belgium have been redrawn multiple times. This complex past has given villages in the region distinctly colorful nicknames and local identities; Faymonville's "Turks" is one of the most talked-about examples of this mosaic.
These types of villages usually fall outside the main tourist routes, but precisely for this reason they offer a unique texture worth visiting: attending a local football match, walking through the village streets during carnival season, or simply stopping for a coffee break and chatting with local people to hear these stories not found in official history books, is the best way to discover these lesser-known narratives. The Waimes municipality and its surroundings, at the northern edge of the Ardennes, offer a serene Belgian landscape with green valleys and small stone villages; Faymonville is a small hidden treasure within this landscape, carrying along the legend of its name.
For those wanting to explore the region, Faymonville is approximately one hour from the city of Liège and more than two hours from Brussels. The village is a typical Ardennes settlement known for its traditional slate (ardoise) roofed stone houses; additionally, due to its proximity to the Hautes-Fagnes region, it offers easy access to marked hiking trails and Ravel bicycle-walking paths. Faymonville suffered major destruction during the December 1944 Ardennes Offensive (von Rundstedt Offensive) in World War II, and its residents were forced to evacuate in the face of bombing—a difficult past lies behind its serene appearance today. The multilingual character of the Eastern Cantons—with French, German, and regional Walloon dialects heard intertwined—offers travelers a distinctly interesting cultural experience in itself; the village, short travel distance from Eupen, the administrative center of the German-speaking community, or the historic Sankt Vith town, can easily be added to an Ardennes tour route as a lesser-known but historically significant stop.
RFC Turkania's story actually reminds us that one should never judge something based on its name or emblem superficially before examining the narrative behind it. Neither the club nor the village residents are of Turkish origin; yet centuries ago, a sarcastic nickname born from a tax dispute continues to live on in the club's name, in the village's carnival tradition, and in local identity. Perhaps this is one of Belgium's most unexpected but most sincere cultural bridges, established in precisely this small village, in ways one would never anticipate.
