Nauru's football dream: volunteers aim to give every child a ball in push for first-ever international

World Cup fever fades to reveal a football vacuum

Like everywhere else on the planet, the world's smallest island nation was gripped by football fever for six weeks this summer. But once Spain lifted the World Cup trophy, almost every trace of football on Nauru stopped — because, in reality, football is almost non-existent on this Pacific island.

Nauru has never fielded a team in an official international match and boasts just one pitch, a hard sand surface. While there is genuine interest in big Premier League matches, and children wear Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo kits, any attempts to actually play football tend to be mocked — unless it is Aussie rules.

That could be about to change. A group of volunteers, led by British former academy player Charlie Pomroy, is seeking to introduce the game to what was once the world's richest nation per capita but is now heavily reliant on foreign aid and has one of the highest obesity rates in the world.

A social media post from the Nauru Soccer Federation congratulating the new world champions — setting out a dream that "one day we hope to be in Spain's position" — may have been fanciful, but the groundwork is real in what it says is the last country not to have had a senior international side.

A complicated past that explains a reluctant sporting culture

Laying foundations on an island where over-mining has left the landscape looking more like a moonscape has been far from straightforward.

Located in the Pacific Ocean roughly 2,500 miles north-east of Australia, Nauru's historical wealth was built on vast deposits of phosphate from fossilised bird droppings. Heavily mined in the late 20th century after being a dependent territory of Australia until independence in 1968, the minerals dried up, leaving the country once named Pleasant Island looking ragged. Large parts of its central areas are now uninhabitable and extremely challenging to farm.

The result: most of the 12,000-strong population clusters around the coastal edges, with usable space at a premium on an island that measures just 21 square kilometres — and even that is shrinking, as climate change and rising sea levels threaten its very existence.

The barren land has left the country importing more than 90% of its food, much of it processed, contributing to 69% of the population being classed as obese and around 40% having type 2 diabetes. One of its main sources of revenue now comes from the Australian immigration detention centre it has housed for much of this century.

Sport has been a strong release for many — the sport of choice is Aussie rules, which 30% of locals play — and athletics and weightlifting, sports Nauru has competed in at the Olympics, are also popular. Nauru will host the Micronesian Games in 2028, a multi-sport event that includes football and will showcase the island's desire to grow its international reputation through sport.

Building an ecosystem, not one-off games

Past attempts to introduce football to Nauru have focused on one-off fixtures, including two years ago when former Premier League striker Dave Kitson was appointed to lead a group of 18 Nauruans into a game after a two-week training camp. Their opponents were set to be XL FC, a Reading Sunday league team. That match never happened for financial reasons, and so the wait for that inaugural game goes on.

The closest Nauru has come to playing an international was when representative teams faced a Solomon Islands expatriate team in 1994 and a refugee side in 2014.

But the ethos has since changed, with Nauru Soccer looking longer term. "Dave Kitson would have gone, I would have gone, and it would have been great for a couple of months, but it's a lot of money," says Pomroy, technical director for Nauru Soccer and one of eight volunteers aiming to develop football on the island. "Let's start a culture on this island of football or sport and help it grow, because it's an important thing. Let's build the ecosystem, not just one-off games."

The volunteers have launched a campaign to give every child aged four to 14 a ball — roughly 2,000 children — working with churches and the island's 11 schools to deliver them. The balls will arrive 200 at a time by plane to help manage distribution and avoid potential waste.

'The dream for Nauru'

"They are trying to change the image for the better and get involved in more sport," says Pomroy, who previously set up a charity in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap that grew into a professional academy, producing 47 players who have progressed to play professionally in the Asian country. He also runs successful programmes bringing football to underserved communities in India.

"They [Nauru] want people to see the country in a more positive light rather than the punchline of a joke. So whether it's football, whether it's Aussie rules, whether it's rugby, basketball, cricket, weightlifting... just to be part of building a healthier Nauru is enough. But being a football lover, the best way I know how to have an impact is through football."

Once Pomroy arrives for a training camp in December, he will set up coaching programmes for players and aspiring coaches so the sport can continue throughout the year. Much of this hinges on finding places to play — much of the land is privately owned or uninhabitable. Volunteer Tyrone Deiye is hoping to use some of his family's land to create more pitches than the sole one that currently exists, a dusty surface of phosphate over crushed dirt, with indoor pitches another option.

He acknowledges the cultural challenge: Nauruans "watch the expats play but they sort of laugh at them because they don't understand the game, they think it's funny". Other Pacific island nations play football, and expats from these countries sometimes play on Nauru.

Pomroy is keen to stress that Nauru Soccer is not trying to "force football down everyone's throat" but says it is about laying a foundation for a sport, promoting healthy lifestyles and building communities.

"The life lessons that you learn through football aren't just on the pitch, not just about winning and losing," he says. "It's the friends that you make. It is learning to be humble. It's learning to look after your body. It's learning to get up when you fall down. And that's how I've seen it change people across the world. That's the dream for Nauru.

"My personal dream is that Nauru's first ever international game is played with all kids that are 18 years old that had been coming through our system. So, say we found a group of 14-year-olds now and worked with them over the next three or four years. By the time they're 17-18 years old, that will be Nauru's first ever national team game.

"If we sat here in five years' time, I genuinely believe that we will have a senior team that will be filled with 18, 19, 20-year-olds. Then in 20 years' time, someone from Nauru comes up to me and says, 'my life changed through football and the development programme'... That would be the ultimate dream."