Tuvalu is the home of perhaps the most ambitious football project in the world. As the fourth-smallest country by land mass and the second-smallest by population in the world, Tuvalu is aiming to become the 212th FIFA member.
A mammoth job for a country, though football-mad, as small and geographically challenged as Tuvalu, which is a three-hour flight away from Fiji, the next-closest FIFA-affiliated neighbours.
One of the key figures spearheading this massive project is 31-year-old Dutchman Michiel van der Werf, who supports the Tuvaluan FA from the ground up in their efforts.
How does someone from a Dutch town of fewer than 900 people come to work in one of the most remote countries in the world, though?
“I am a traveller. I enjoy seeing the world,” Michiel told Flashscore in an exclusive interview.
“So I embarked on a few adventures abroad. One thing led to another. At a certain point, you find yourself in that football world, and you encounter all sorts of things. I've been able to see a lot of the world through football, and I like it. As long as everything goes well, we'll keep going. That does take you to some remote corners of the world.”
Michiel is a board member of the Netherlands Oceania Support Foundation, a non-profit that facilitates and supports football opportunities in the Pacific.
“We mostly send coaches, appointing national coaches or send some youth trainers. If we're lucky financially, we often take some equipment with us, like new balls and various training equipment. Some countries have more to spend than others. Tuvalu, for example, is not yet a member of FIFA, so they have very little budget of their own.”
And that’s where it all started: Tuvalu. Michiel decided to check it out for himself, for once, after the COVID-19 pandemic halted the foundation's plans.
“My girlfriend is from Indonesia, so I'm there quite often,” he said. ”And then I suddenly had the opportunity to spend a few months there. I had nothing planned, so I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go back to Tuvalu on behalf of the foundation, because Indonesia is still quite a long way away, but it's a lot closer, so to speak. I’d be going there for a few weeks to see if we can pick up where we left off, so to speak. And then a whole new adventure began.”
That whole new adventure came off the back of the TIFA’s (Tuvalu Islands Football Association) decision to register for the OFC Nations Cup futsal tournament.
“I had already scheduled a meeting with the board. We had to come up with something in a very short time, and they asked me if I could help that team. So basically, from the day I was there, I prepared that team for the tournament instead of focusing on football, which was the reason I was there in the first place.”
So there Michiel was. From arriving on the island after a three-day travel to being named manager of the national futsal team – a top priority for Tuvalu at that time: “It was the first time Tuvalu had participated in 14 years. So yes, that was the most important thing at that moment.”
He didn’t have much time to build a team: “I had to put together the whole team in two hours, all at once. And I had never seen those lads play football before,” Michiel said while laughing.
Help from an unexpected corner
Despite not winning a game at the tournament, Tuvalu left a much better mark than in previous editions and what was broadly expected ahead of the tournament. The team that once regularly lost games with 20-goal differences was now filling the country with hope.
“When you see how much positivity we've already created there, not only in the media but also in the region… Everyone really thought that Tuvalu would lose every game 20-0 and 16-0, just like in the past. We had to play against the four strongest countries in Oceania, since there were only five teams in that tournament.
“We did lose four times, but we really didn't do badly. Against New Zealand, for example, we lost 6-1, with the second half ending 1-1. That's really impressive against a country with a population of 5.3 million, compared to a country with 10,000.”
Against Vanuatu, a country with 50 times Tuvalu's population, Michiel and his team fought to a 3-2 defeat, much to the Dutchman's delight.
That tournament fuelled Michiel's efforts to put Tuvalu on the global football map. Once he and the Tuvaluan delegation returned from the tournament in Fiji, Michiel returned to the key task at hand: obtaining FIFA membership.
Tuvalu has very limited resources, including monetarily, without the subsidies that full-time FIFA and OFC members receive. Therefore, a sponsor would come in very handily, and as luck would have it, Michiel ran into the very people who would help him along at a restaurant on Tuvalu.
Ahead of the futsal tournament, Michiel got to talking with a couple of Americans who own an A.I. company in San Francisco that helped remote islands with their internet speed or satellite connections. Once he had told them about the remarkable Tuvaluan football story, they were sold.
“They said, you know what we'll do? We'll sponsor you so you can prepare properly,” after hearing about the lack of training facilities on the island where the football and rugby teams share one pitch, making the other practice on the airstrip.
“So we went to Fiji a little earlier. And in exchange, we would see whether the players could help the company with contacts in the government. Tuvalu is a small country, of course, so most people know each other.”
The next extra steps
The sponsorship changed the trajectory of the Tuvaluan project immensely. “The intention was actually that I would first evaluate how things were going and to map things out. And then, during the time I was there, I would give courses and train trainers, and give clinics for young people,” Michiel said.
“But because of the tournament, very little of that has happened yet. But that will happen in the near future. Thanks to that American sponsor who wants to remain involved in this project, we are going to do a lot more. With the ultimate goal of FIFA membership. And that's why we're going to New Zealand to discuss it, because you have to meet a whole list of requirements. So that's the next step.”
Michiel and the Tuvaluan delegation will meet with the OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) about becoming a full-time member, which would be the first step towards FIFA membership.
“Tuvalu is now an associate member. That means you are a partial member. But you don't really get any subsidies with that. And if you are a full member, then you do get subsidies. And with those subsidies, you can really get things done.
“Right now, it's all still hanging together thanks to that sponsor. But we'll see if we can arrange everything. And once we have full membership, with the subsidy that comes in, you can actually start appointing people and improving facilities.”
To become a member of any confederation, a football association will have to comply with a list of conditions. These range from owning a stadium and two training facilities to having a proper hotel for visiting teams to stay at, all on home soil. Michiel hopes the meeting with the OFC and confederation members will help them on their voyage.
“When we meet the OFC, the opening of the OFC Pro League, Oceania's first-ever professional competition, will take place, and we'll be there too. We'll be talking to all the other countries, and then we'll see how realistic our plan is. We can meet 90% of those requirements, but a number of them really do require serious investment, and that's the chicken-and-egg story, so to speak. It's just not possible to compete without subsidies.”
The challenge starts with the football facilities, which Tuvalu currently doesn’t have.
“Tuvalu only has one pitch. Adding two more pitches is simply impossible in practical terms. There is simply not enough land to build them,” said Michiel.
“And, of course, it's very expensive to build an artificial turf pitch, for example. We're talking about a million euros if you have to ship everything in. And the hotel that's there now has about 20 rooms. You can't accommodate a full national team in that. We've already discussed with Fiji whether we can play our home games there. But there are a few requirements that are actually impossible to meet. And then we'll look at how we can solve that.”
Tuvalu playing their official home games on FIFA wouldn’t be unique. A precedent has been set by the likes of Gibraltar, North Korea, and Timor-Leste, who’ve played their home games in Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
‘We’re much more than the climate crisis’
How much OFC and FIFA membership would mean to the Tuvaluan people cannot be understated, Michiel revealed.
“It's a small country, but there are several small countries in Oceania, and also in the Caribbean. Those countries are also entitled to FIFA membership. And Tuvalu is a very football-mad country. Football is really number one. So for the people alone, it would be fantastic.
“Because in Tuvalu, you have the Pacific Games once every four years. That's the Olympic Games of the Pacific. And then you always have a football tournament. Tuvalu can participate because it's not a FIFA tournament, and they almost always beat the other small Oceania countries that are FIFA members. So yes, in terms of football, we can compete very well with the other small countries.”
How far away Tuvalu is from playing official FIFA matches is hard to tell. Where they’ll be at the end of 2026 is up to the meeting with the OFC, but the aim is to compete in the 2034 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
“It will probably take a while. Because ultimately, you have to get approval from all the members. All of whom are members of the OFC. And from the OFC itself. Suppose they are willing to think about a number of things in a more alternative way, then it would be great if it could be done by the end of 2027, for example. So two years, let's say.”
Two years. Two years for Tuvalu to grow into a full-time FIFA member with the right facilities, all the way from grassroots football to the national team.
In one year, though, Michiel would like to see the facilities in Tuvalu be better. “There's already a lot of football being played every day. That will continue. Above all, though, I hope that we can participate more internationally.
“If we were allowed into FIFA tournaments, we could also participate much more in youth tournaments in the region, but also with the first team. That way, we can increase visibility in the region and help athletes gain more experience. Because now Valo has eight teams in the league. You always play against the same players year after year. And of course it's good to develop yourself by playing against other players.”
The football story is exactly what Michiel wants the outside world to know about Tuvalu.
“Look, if you Google Tuvalu, almost everyone, every journalist who comes to you, comes for the climate crisis and climate problems. Tuvalu is known as the first country to disappear into the sea due to the rising sea level. Everyone writes about that.
“I've already said to a number of those journalists: write about the football story for a change. Then you show the country in a different light. Because Tuvalu is more than the climate problem.”
Special story
Michiel went to Fiji with the futsal team in August, and by now, he’s co-leading Tuvalu to a bright football future. With everything happening so fast, it took a while for it all to dawn on him.
“With the tournament and everything, it all happened very quickly, of course. And at that moment, you're completely immersed in it, so you're naturally fully focused on getting the best possible result,” Michiel said.
“When you're back in the Netherlands two months later, and you look back on it, you do think, ‘wow, that was indeed quite a special experience.’ And look, if it had stayed at that, I would have been happy with that too, and it would still have been a wonderful experience. But now, I think it's very special that there's going to be a sequel.”
After only that one futsal tournament, things are looking up for the project.
“Everyone was pleasantly surprised by what we achieved, and that was only three weeks - imagine if we could work towards that for a whole year. I'm sure the story could really take off. With good football results, you can also put your own country on the map.”
Michiel’s time with the Tuvalu project will come to an end at some point in time, but while he’s there, he wants to make sure that the country is on its way to realising its football dreams.
“I know that people would really like to become FIFA members. They just want to participate on the international stage. That's something we've been talking about for a long time. And I just want to support them in that. My time will come to an end at some point. And then I just hope that they can continue on the road to success with new people. And that I can at least look back and see that I helped them move in the right direction.”
