Five years ago, the Marshall Islands launched their mission to draw the status of the last country on earth without a football team.
In December 2022, they ramped things up by hiring Oxford-based coach Lloyd Owers as their technical director.
“Currently the focus is on building from scratch,” he said in an interview with Sky SportsShortly after his appointment.
At that time he had not even visited the small nation – composed of five islands, 29 atolls and about 60,000 people in the Pacific, more than 3,000 miles off Australia’s northeast coast.
The first goal was to gather basic equipment to play football in a place without any previous story about the game and then introduce it to school plans to lay the foundation for the future.
Last summer, Marshall Islands Soccer Federation arranged and hosted the initial Outrigger Challenge Cup, a futsal tournament that was disputed by itself, Kiribati and Micronesia and a B team from each. Kiribati beat the hosts 6-2 in the final.
The progress of the project has been quick.
So much so that the Marshall Islands between August 13 and August 16 play their first ever 11 against 11 international in the 2025 Outrigger Challenge Cup, with owers at the helm as head coach.
“Two years ago we could only dream of it, and now it will happen,” he says.
“It’s been an ongoing job for a long time. Since we started, everyone has asked when the first game would be, but we wanted to make sure the project was sustainable and that we first had the right things in place. That had to be the right time.
“We could have taken the safer opportunity to make the Futsal tournament again this year, but time is ticking.
“We want to be confederation members and we have formally applied for three different routes. With that we also have to be 11 VS 11-present, so we thought, this summer, that’s what we need to do.
“We don’t want to have low -risk games where we might play someone locally in the region and really, really, really good, but it won’t make us anyone favoring credibility.”
Also participating in this year’s historic tournament is the US Virgin Islands, the Turks and the Caico Islands and MLS next page Ozark United U19, which recently replaced the previously announced Guam.
However, it will not host the Marshall Islands this time. Instead, the matches take place at Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium in Springdale, Arkansas.
The rationale? The American city has the largest population of Marshallesian people – all about 15,000 – outside the country even because of free movement between the two nations. Logistically, it is obviously much simpler.
What makes this more impressive is the fact that the Marshall Islands still have no regular financing stream, as Owers explains.
“We have good relations with the government and they support what they do. They help us roll out the support, especially across the main island of Majuro, and we have a good relationship with the education ministers.
Republic of Marshall Islands is an independent island and microstat near Equator in the Pacific (picture: misf)
“But there will be nothing financial from the government until there is a confederation membership, which is a bit of a catch-22.” More about that in a moment.
And then the project depends on sponsorships and donations, with a recent kickstarter campaign that raises £ 21,573.
“It is expensive and we put ourselves a massive task, but at the same time we felt we had to take a risk. We would rather go big than take the easy opportunity.
“We just want to keep pushing and increasing attention – and the more activity we have, the more opportunities there are for people to get involved financially.”
Now the countdown to the tournament is on, the focus is on which players make up the team, and Owers says that the pool of players he could realistically choose until the team totals “about 100 worldwide”.
This figure includes players of Marshallesian descent who grew up in the United States, as well as players of US descent who grew up in the Marshall Islands. It also includes two teens living in Germany who reached out via Instagram and subsequently proved their inheritance.
The population of the Marshall Islands are spread across five islands and 29 coralatolls (picture: misf)
By introducing football to schools, from now on, this pool will only grow.
“Our players are very young,” adds Owers. “Bar a couple of older players in the group playing this summer, most are just finishing high school, starting college or college.
“We are fully aware that it will be a tough test, but we are under the impression that you have to aim to play against those you want to play against regularly. No one expects us to win the matches, but if we can put a piece of a show and show that we can participate, we will.
“But we don’t want this 11 VS 11 game to happen, and then we won’t play again for two years. We want this to be the start.”
Apart from playing international football for the first time, it has always been right at the top of Marshall Islands’ agenda. The recognition, funding and chance of playing in the World Cup matches would be game shifts.
But it is far from a straightforward process.
“Ofc (Oceania Football Confederation) issued a guideline for what potential members should do to apply, and we created our strategy document to customize it,” says Owers.
“I really think it was on the back of what we have managed to do because we have been the noisy neighbors, and I don’t think people realized how quickly we would move forward.
“We realized that we actually met so much of the criteria for full membership, not only affiliated with membership, so we felt we were in a really strong position.
“Unfortunately, OFC has not responded to our application except for a journalist in New Zealand. Almost with a message of ‘Yes, you are in a strong position, but it is an extra nation we need to give our funding to’, which is not good for us.
“At the same time, we are now applying for AFC (Asian Football Confederation) and Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean Association Football) because we do not want to close these doors and they are actually more responsive.
Owers continue to live and work in the UK (picture: lloyd owers)
“Especially with AFC, logistically, we are in a strong position to get to Asia from the Marshall Islands. We also have direct flights to Honolulu, then to the American mainland, and we can get to one of these Concacaf nations.
“It may technically lie in Oceania, but maybe it’s not a bad thing that OFC has done it because it may have been pushed in a better direction, and I would like to say that in 2026 we will hopefully in a strong position to at least knock on that door to be welcomed in a little more than we are now.”
Owers laughs as he says his technical director role is a full -time job in itself, at the top of the full -time job he holds down day to day in the UK. But it is clearly paid off.
Along with organizing the first international and confederation membership applications, there is so much work going on behind the scenes to move forward.
There are regular sessions that take place in the islands of Majuro, Kwajalein and Ebeye, and there is hope of establishing a league construction in the future rather than exclusively tournament -focused matches.
About 200 schoolchildren now play football on the Marshall Islands (picture: Lloyd owers)
As many as 200 children play football in schools, and there is a US-based woman’s national futsal team who have participated in two training camps so far. There is also a partnership with Special Olympics Marshall Islands and a goal of participating in World Games in Chile in 2027.
The Marshall Islands are now a home away from home for Owers.
“You go into a supermarket and someone will ask, ‘Are you a football guy?!’ It is strange that in the middle of the Pacific there are some bloke who live near Oxford who is known for football!
“The first time I went, I didn’t really know what to expect. It’s the most remote place I’ve ever been to. But now there’s a sense of home for it.
Sunset football at Kwajalein (Image: Scott Hill)
“I have made friends there; there is a massive community and people will help you. It’s one of the places where they, if anyone has nothing, will give you what they have. Everyone helps everyone and it just feels welcoming.
“Two years later they see the benefits of it. Children have got a new hobby and there is a real path where you can represent your country in another sport.
“You can get off the island and you can visit new places and have the experiences that you couldn’t two years ago. Even a year ago you couldn’t, so now it actually happens, people are starting to say that this is good. It’s a nice place to be.”
The Marshall Islands continue to collect money for their project via Gofundme – support here