Northern Mariana Islands
How a group of parents created an international football team
“[As] full members we will be blessed with many opportunities for our programme and our players” Northern Mariana Islands forward Sunjoon Tenorio
Fifteen years after forming, the Northern Mariana Islands have finally been accepted as a full Asian Football Confederation member, but face a wait before playing their first senior game as an AFC member.
The NMIFA was formed by a group of US soccer parents, who came to Saipan, the largest of the 14 islands that make up the Northern Mariana archipelago, and found that organised football had died out.
“There was football but it was all in the Korean community,” says Wes Bogdan, a superior court judge and one of those early pioneers, who helped set up a new league. “When they saw we had lines and nets, they joined us.”
The league took off and, in 2008, Northern Mariana were accepted as full members of the East Asian Football Federation. Under president Jerry Tan, the islands began to play internationals against other EAFF members but finding eligible players was complicated.
Bogdan explains: “When we first set up a national team, we sent out all of these invites but a lot of the great players on Saipan couldn’t play because they didn’t have a US visa. Even though I was old, I was an able body so I played and got a cap.”
The problem is the complicated ethnic and political make-up of the islands. The game is most popular amongst the immigrant community, particularly Koreans and Chinese, but the islands have been under US control since World War Two and players need a US passport to play for the national team.
Saipan has a population of around 50,000, where there is a flourishing league of 12 clubs in two leagues with veterans Bogdan and Tan still playing in the second tier for Shirley’s FC. Another 10,000 people live mainly on Rotan and Tinian, where NMIFA has set up a youth section.
At youth level, the game is flourishing but many players choose to head to the United States to attend college at 18, which prompted the NMIFA to hold training camps in San Diego and Dallas in the past to get the national team together.
Despite all of these challenges a team has been fielded in qualifying for the EAFF Cup and, in June 2014, a first victory was recorded with a 2-1 win over Macau. That success has not been emulated, but the gap is narrowing according to forward Sunjoon Tenorio, who attends Warner Pacific University in Oregon.
He explains:
“I think there was a gap between us and Mongolia, but I do feel the gap has been decreasing over the years. With Guam and Macau I feel like we competed and it wasn’t as one-sided as it has been in the past.
“Now that we are full members we will be blessed with many opportunities for our programme and our players as well. We still have a long way to go to be amongst the top teams, but I do feel like with the new opportunities we will get we will only improve and work our way towards competing and maybe winning against some of the bigger Asian countries.”
With the local league suspended due to coronavirus and no senior national games scheduled, Northern Mariana’s players must wait before taking their next step up the international ladder.