A tropical island in the Pacific Ocean, and a landlocked nation, 4,682 times its size, in East Asia. Imaginably, there aren't many things that the two share in common. Apart from Paul Watson, that is.
1:33pm, March 13th, 2024.
Paul Watson opens Zoom and loads the meeting. The inevitable audio issues were no match for our technological prowess as we employed the classic turn-it-off-and-on-again technique, which of course worked a treat, and away we went. The succeeding 45-minute conversation transported us to three continents and six countries, all woven together by Watson's life.
Our first stop on this long, winding road was Pohnpei- a tropical island of 36,000 people in the Pacific Ocean. 2,500 miles east of Manila, Pohnpei is where Watson’s dream of becoming an international footballer began, and ended.
Pohnpei (in blue) combines with the islands of Yap, Kosrae, and Chuuk to form the Federated States of Micronesia.
Born in Alberta, Canada in 1984, Watson grew up in Bristol. Studying Italian at the University of Leeds, he played semi-professional football and worked on Channel 4's program Football Italia, before his footballing career took a different turn.
In 2009, Paul Watson and his friend Matt Conrad decided that they would try and become international footballers by playing for Pohnpei (part of a non-FIFA-affiliated nation). However, Watson discovered how logistically challenging this would be, starting with the surrender of their British citizenships. This, unfortunately for their footballing aspirations, wasn't an option, but they didn't give in quite yet. Their attention switched to coaching, and after two years of negotiation with Micronesian officials, Watson became the manager of Pohnpei at 25 years old, making him the world’s youngest international football coach in 2009.
Coaching, however, was only a small part of the much wider role he had just accepted. “I find it really hard to describe what I do because it's got loads of separate strands… Generally speaking, what I tend to do is just take on projects involving football as a force for social good.”
Despite the tropical climate most Brits dream of, working somewhere as isolated as Micronesia certainly comes with its challenges. “It just makes it, in my opinion, the hardest place in the world to run a football team, because you've got these four islands separated by cultural differences, political aspects, huge distances, huge airfares, and they're getting no support from anyone at all.”
The isolation, along with not being a FIFA-affiliated team, means international aid is unlikely. It also means that footballing influence from the outside is limited too- the style of football they played was unlike anything Watson had seen before. “It’s quite island-ised, there wasn’t a rigidity of rules.
“When I first got there, people would just sometimes catch the ball and boot it away, or slide head-first into someone's knees to tackle them," Watson laughed.
But rather than strictly imposing what he had been used to, part of his job was to embrace these differences. “It was a fine line between trying to somewhat smooth it into a more recognisable form of the game so they could go elsewhere and play, but also not killing what was culturally genuine, and there were really nice aspects to that.”
Eventually taking the team on a tour of Guam over 1,000 miles away, Watson and his side even won a game against a local club, but the future of Micronesian football is tough to predict. On one hand, the new World Cup format could give smaller nations the best chances they’ve ever had of playing on the world stage. On the other, Watson labels Micronesia’s situation as a catch-22, where the nation needs to grow the game to get any funding, but struggles to do so without the funding in the first place.
“They can't get their projects to a level where they're taken seriously by the Asian Football Federation or Oceania… that's because they haven't got the funding, so everything is always volunteer-led. It relies entirely upon one person usually being able to run these things for free.”
Images from Paul Watson and Matt Conrad's time in Pohnpei, courtesy of Paul Watson.
During his time in the Pacific, Watson was that one person they relied on, but he later moved on to his next project, this time in Mongolia.
In 2013, Bayangol FC was founded after Watson was contacted by a local from Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, who invited him to help set up a new football team. The idea was to encourage young people to play football at a time when participation was low. “Theoretically, you'd build a club of really talented Mongolian players, and if they then got opportunities to move abroad and play it would actually be really beneficial to Mongolian football because, really, one of the biggest problems for Mongolian football is the isolation.”
“That was that was how it was supposed to work anyway…There were many, many issues actually, that stood in the way. One of the biggest things was we were at a point where Mongolian football weirdly was mimicking what's happened with English football.” By this, Watson was referring to clubs being run in a financially irresponsible way, where business tycoons invested relatively large sums of money to use football as their 'plaything.'
Other more serious issues arose too, with one being described by Watson as a form of player trafficking.
He found that clubs would bring players in from abroad, often from West Africa, later telling them that there were issues with their immigration papers. They'd then take a portion of the players’ salaries, claiming they would deal with the problem. This left the players in a vulnerable position, as they were being told that they were illegal immigrants.
“There was nothing they could do, because if they said ‘no we're going to walk away from the club’, [they’d have] no way to earn any money. And they would know they're an illegal immigrant in the country, which is not a nice thing to be anywhere, but in Mongolia, it's a pretty harsh environment to be in. They ran the risk of arrest.
“They were effectively captive because what else were they going to do?”
Bayangol FC tried their best to stand against this, attempting to provide a safe haven for these players, who simply wanted to make an honest living. But for a club that already had financial struggles, this was a heavy weight to bear.
“We spent all our money on that because we didn't see it coming, and the federation at the time just delegated responsibility entirely. They did not want anything to do with it. I think it has changed now, but it was really shocking.”
With little prospect of playing overseas, players could also be taken advantage of. In 2015, Bayangol player, Ochiroo Batbold, was offered a trial at LA Galaxy by a supposed agent, who stopped replying to Batbold's messages after he had paid a £3,800 fee. "I wanted to believe anyone who could help me", Batbold told the BBC. Facing the loss of his house after this, a fundraiser set up by Watson managed to reimburse the young Mongolian.
Having left Mongolia in 2017, Watson has played a part in creating a cup competition for the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, whilst also directing the 2018 CONIFA World Football Cup for non-FIFA-recognised nations, and launching Kitmas in 2020- an initiative to collect and redistribute football kits for UK children who may not have otherwise received a Christmas present.
Undoubtedly fitting his criteria of using football as a force for social good, Paul Watson’s career will have had a positive impact on countless people around the world. Providing the opportunity for so many to play the sport, Watson’s ventures have ensured that football truly remains The World’s Game.
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