Mick Hartley

Here’s a BBC story from Falluja:

The Iraqi victory in football’s Asian Cup in July 2007 prompted joy across the country – and sparked an idea in a football fan far away in the United States.

Boston travel agent Roxana von Kraus decided to print 100 posters of the winning team to send to her son, a US marine on his third tour of duty in Iraq.

Her son, Capt Brian von Kraus handed out the posters to Iraqi children he met while on patrol in Anbar province.

“They loved it, I got rid of them all in about two days,” he told the BBC News website from the US military’s Habbaniyah Camp, west of Falluja.

“Then, the sheikhs from the Abu Issa tribe invited us marines over for dinner.”

Capt Kraus says he was impressed that a small gesture could generate so much goodwill. It gave him the idea of setting up a children’s football league.

“If soccer posters can bring people together, imagine what a soccer league could do.”

“We see kids playing soccer in the fields all the time, but there’s no league or anything like that for them. We want to create six teams per age group in the area, 24 teams in all.

“I’m doing it with a friend here, Capt Carlos Gomez who was a soccer coach in civilian life. He’s talking to the local sheikhs.”

He contacted his mother in Boston, and together they started “Operation Ultimate Goal” to raise money to provide kit for the new league. They have raised nearly $20,000 in the US in just three months.

“The project has gone way beyond my expectations, I was expecting a couple of boxes of old uniforms but we’ve got enough to buy new equipment, new uniforms, sneakers, everything.”

They aim to get the league established by the end of January 2008.

Brian says the positive attitude of local people to the project contrasts with his first experience of Falluja three years ago.

“I am sure some of the people who are now working with us were the same people who were targeting us before.