Danish football player founds nonprofit soccer club in Taiwan
Today we take you to meet Johnni Nielsen, the founder of a nonprofit football club in Taipei called the F.C. Vikings. He and his wife, Hope, founded the club in 2010 to make football more accessible. Over the 13 years, they have provided free football training for elementary school students all the way up to adults. FTV reporter Stephany Yang has the story.
Walking up the staircase, he lists the trophies and medals accumulated over 13 years. This is Johnni Nielsen, founder of the F.C. Vikings. He says this trophy in particular is one of his proudest achievements.
Johnni Nielsen
F.C. Vikings founder
This is the newest trophy we won in our team. This was Shih Hsin University that won this trophy. I am very proud of this one. The school is proud of it and also the students are proud of it because this means that we’ve moved up to the first division in the university league.
For the past 13 years, Nielsen has made it his mission to share his passion for soccer in Taiwan, 5,000 miles away from his home in Denmark. Nielsen has played soccer since he was young. He’s even a European Football Federation-licensed coach. After he met his Taiwanese wife, Hope, the couple moved to Taiwan in 2009. In 2010, they launched a club that provides free training for soccer talent from elementary school all the way to adulthood.
Johnni Nielsen
F.C. Vikings founder
I try to do it the way I was taught when I was playing and coaching in Denmark, though I do things a bit differently here. We are a football club based in Taiwan. We play for schools because I think education is very important for young people. We go all the way from kindergarten to elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, and university, and now we have a professional team. We do training after school. We’ve just started a professional team, the F.C. Vikings PlayOne is our professional team. Our goal is to move up from the second division up to the first division and complete our AFC Club qualification. If we make it up to the best teams in Taiwan, we get to play abroad.
Hope Tsai
F.C. Vikings manager
These 13 years have had a lot of ups and downs. We are actually looking forward to let the society know that and we need to learn. We are building a brand new system here and it is something that has never existed in Taiwan before. We need to try to figure out a lot of things.
In 2023, they launched a professional adult team called Vikings PlayOne, composed of locals, students from Shih Hsin University, and players from abroad.
One player in the team is Mitchell Carter, a New Zealander who grew up in Taiwan. After attending university in New Zealand and playing for several teams semi-professionally in New Zealand and Qatar, he’s now back in Taiwan to play for the Vikings PlayOne.
Mitchell Carter
Vikings PlayOne player
I am currently a middle school PE and health teacher at Taipei American School. Obviously, one of my favorite hobbies is playing football so I am very happy to be playing football for Vikings PlayOne this year. I played a lot of football in my past so I am very happy to be in an awesome country as Taiwan is. For me, my goal is in terms of the team. That is making sure we are in the top two. If we can win this whole thing this year for division two. That would be fantastic.
After teaching at school, Carter trains with the team three times a week on the field and at least one time a week in the gym.
Mitchell Carter
Vikings PlayOne player
We train three to four times on grass. We do a lot of tactics, we do a lot of technical work. Obviously, our coach loves us to be in peak physical condition. So a lot of shuttle runs and a lot of ball work. In terms of what we do in training, it is a lot of mixture between drills, exercises, and gameplay. It is a relatively new team. It is the first year that they have had a senior team. It has been a lot of new recruits and some young guys coming through but in terms of quality, it has been probably some of the best players and teams that I played with since I’ve been here in Taiwan. Playing for a while here, I have seen the quality and the level. Definitely, this team has a really high level and potential to grow further as we progress and develop under our coach.
Making soccer more accessible is one of Nielsen’s main goals. He also hopes to provide talented players a chance to train and compete without having to choose between sport and study or sport and their full-time jobs. He says the past 13 years building up the club have not been easy, especially raising funds, as the team provides free training and covers travel expenses for its players.
Johnni Nielsen
F.C. Vikings founder
We did a lot of traveling before COVID. As you know, traveling on a football team is quite expensive. We got sponsorship. The families that can afford it they will help with the tickets for their own kids. So, we really rely on sponsors to keep it going. I believe football should be for everybody. It doesn’t really matter if you are rich or poor, you should be able to play football. For me, once you put on a uniform and it has a name, then everyone is equal. It is a giving system. It is helping a lot of people.
Hope Tsai
F.C. Vikings manager
Through Vikings, we can let people understand that football and Taiwan is open to the world. And that Taiwanese actually care.
Nielsen hopes the club will continue to provide talented players with quality training and the chance to shine in Taiwan and internationally.
2023-05-28