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The Marshall Islands is the last nation on earth to discover the beautiful game. It is the only country to have never had a national team match and no national 11 a side league
In fact, it was only in 2020 that the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation was created and the first notable activity came in December 2022 when Lloyd Owers (Technical Director & coaching staff), Matt Webb (Commercial Director) and Justin Walley (Communications Director & coaching staff) joined the federation at distance in the UK.
The three men set about creating a brand and national team identity, social media accounts, a website, a charity fundraising account. Meetings followed to help put football on school sports curriculum for the first time, a futsal league was created and after school kids football classes. The three men also used a successful public campaign run on Twitter for people to send their ideas for the first ever national team shirt. A short list of designs were then voted on by the public and the winning design became the Pacific nation’s first ever shirt. Sales of the shirt (more than 500 worldwide to date) helped fund month-long coaching visits first by Lloyd in August 2023 and then by Justin in January 2024. During these visits Lloyd and Justin coached at adult and kids sessions, guest coached PE in schools, held meetings with national sports bodies, provided coach education seminars, created social media content, and did dozens of interviews for domestic and international press from New Zealand to the US.
Justin, Matt and Lloyd have done all this on a voluntary basis. The Marshall Islands hopes to play its first national team game in 2024 and held its first ever domestic futsal cup competition – the Ratak Cup – during Justin’s recent visit. Nothing is impossible and the three Brits together with their local coaches and helpers in the Marshall Islands are determined to finally put the Marshall Islands on the world football map.
You can learn more about the project on the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation website, where it is also possible to buy the national team shirt:
The social media accounts are:
Twitter @soccerFedMi
Instagram @rmisoccer
Justin’s Twitter is: @justinwalley10 where he’s posted lots of content from his trip to the Pacific
The Federation is always looking for help and support so please message the Federation through their website or via their social media channels if you’d like to offer your help in any way.
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