Now this might look like a bit of a boring shirt of a small island nation that is not a member of FIFA, but it frankly is one of my most exciting shirts in the collection! It is a matchworn Palau national team shirt, coming straight from the island. I have only ever seen one more in any collection. It really is incredibly rare, which is not so surprising anymore when you learn that the country only ever fielded a team in the 1998, 2014 and 2018 editions of the Micronesia Games. Indeed, football is dormant in the country once again, as FIFA and the Oceania and Asia Confederations keep rejecting Palau membership, despite being a perfectly recognised UN member state, for no reason whatsoever.
I got this shirt through my work with Uncharted Football, a tiny little NGO that tries to help football develop in parts of the world where it is not recognised as the beautiful game, yet. Palau certainly is one of them. With Uncharted Football, we tried to help Palau join FIFA in 2020ish. As a first step, Paul Watson, who is also part of the organisation, travelled to Palau to check the status quo. He found a Football Association that is trying hard, but struggling to organise regular training sessions, as football is not exactly the main sport of the country. But he also found this one football shirt, after looking hard for the entire week he spent in Palau. This shirt ended up in my hands. Thank you so much, Paul!
We later helped Palau writing a FIFA application, which was never submitted, unfortunately, as Palau decided to apply for AFC membership with the support of some Japanese diplomats, instead. A process that did not result in any successes, yet, either. Until today, Palau is being kept out of international football for no reason and one can only hope that FIFA will eventually show some interest in actually developing the sport they claim to develop globally.
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