Royals: the turbulent story of a football academy from Solomon Islands

Football is all about passion – it is about how we can get our team to win, support and give the best to achieve our goals in this beautiful game. If you want to be successful in football, you certainly need a lot of training and sacrifice to achieve what you want. This is the aim of the youth programmes and football academies – to provide the best possible training and facilities to develop the young talents they have.

Oceania is certainly lacking football academies and youth programmes to develop the code. Football still has a long way to go in the region and it is very necessary to implement youth leagues, academies and training facilities. In Solomon Islands, Royals Academy is trying to ensure that young talented players from their country are nurtured as much as possible – but Royals, as most Solomon Islands football fans may already know, has a turbulent history behind the scenes.

The owner of the private academy is the former Solomon Islands International Joel Konofilia. Now 43-years-old, Konofilia strives to establish a good relationship between his academy and other foreign academies and clubs. Recently it was reported that Konofilia was involved in a confusing case concerning the former Solomon Islands U17 International, Maxwell Keana. Keana was found guilty and banned by the OFC and SIFF due to lying his age.

Konofilia has a very difficult relationship with the Solomon Islands Football Association; the former player is currently suspended by the entity for assaulting a referee at a match in the country. Konofilia has a close relationship with Stars Academy from England; many of his young players are currently in England for a training and playing period at Stars’ facilities.

After a stay in England alongside his players and the Royals Academy technical director Alick Collin, Konofilia recently returned to the Solomon Islands. Then, many confusing versions of a story emerge: In recent days, Konofilia has split from Collin and fired him from his position with the Royals. Collin, however, used his reports in the social media to explain his view of the events: In Collin’s words, he said that Konofilia attacked a member of the Stars Academy in England, which led to his arrest, then he was deported back to the Solomon Islands.

Konofilia responded to Collin’s accusations and in fact mentioned that Collin had fought drunk with two of his players. Konofilia also stated that Stars Academy owner and his wife were angry with Collin because he had disturbed them and this was the reason why Stars expelled Collin from their academy – making so Konofilia to fire Collin. The now former technical director of Royals is still in England, according to him.

Two very confusing versions of the same story coming from two highly suspect figures of regional football – it is also known both of them were not so friendly during their stay in England. The only certainty in the midst of this turbulence is that players can not develop in a background of so many problems. While both Konofilia and Collin use their social media to attack each other, many youngsters from Solomon Islands are still in a very rough patch in England during the COVID-19 pandemics. According to reliable sources it is known that family members of the young players have contacted SIFF to do something about the case – the uncertain situation of their sons in England in the midst of the pandemics – but SIFF is not related to Royals and can not respond to this situation as Royals is a private academy – and Konofilia is banned.

Konofilia’s attempt to support the development process of football is something that is definitely valuable, but based on the latest news and statements we can see that there are many problems in this situation. While so many strange events are happening around the Royals, we can not see much development of their players, nor any great success of the Royals in their attempts to develop the game. It seems that Konofilia and his followers are taking a path that will certainly not help them achieve their goals.