About us

Early days

In 1981 Rich Hay, an Athletes in Action wrestler, Tim Conrad, formerly the Biola University soccer coach, and Dave Irby, formerly the coach at Azusa Pacific, founded Sports Life, an international soccer ministry based in Tacoma, Washington. It ran camps in the USA and international tours as short-term mission trips. In 1985 Jonathan Ortlip, leading a tour to Austria, was challenged by OM's leader Johan van Dam to establish a long-term work there — 3,000 Austrian towns and villages had no church. The vision of football as a way to share the gospel took hold in Jon's heart, and in 1987 he followed Tim Conrad and Dave Irby to Missionary Athletes International (MAI).

Ambassadors in Sport

John Squires from New Zealand and Garrick Pang from Seattle joined Jon, and together they recruited ten more staff. Over time God refocused the ministry on England: in 1989 the team sent a proposal called the “European Project” to Christians in Sport (CIS) in Oxford, saying they would establish the work in England only with CIS's blessing — and CIS invited them. In 1990 Ambassadors in Sport was founded in Bolton, England. The international founding team, with roots in Haiti, New Zealand, Spain and the USA, was soon joined by British staff; the vision was for the ministry to become British and reach England's communities by mobilising the Church.

The foundation: God's word and prayer

There was no manual for cross-cultural football ministry. The small group in Bolton built everything on the Word of God and prayer, and that remains the centre of the worldwide Ambassadors Football team today. They started a local football team, ran annual camps (which continue to this day) and sent tours to Asia and the Middle East.

Growing around the world

In 1999, with the blessing of MAI's leaders, Jon established the International Office for Ambassadors in Sport in Northeast Ohio. From 2000 to 2010 the work expanded rapidly around the world as more and more leaders were identified from within their own countries, where starting a new work had once meant recruiting and sending a team of foreigners.

Ambassadors Football

In 2014 the name changed from Ambassadors in Sport to Ambassadors Football, to make clear that it is the simple yet powerful, universal language of football that God has called Ambassadors to use. The name itself comes from our founding verse, 2 Corinthians 5:20 (quoted below).

Generational impact

A cancelled flight in 2014 led the President of Ambassadors Football to meet a Canadian pastor and missionary in Brussels. Their conversation brought an invitation to Rwanda, and in 2017 a partnership with ADEPR, one of the country's largest denominations, became official. It began with the training of more than 70 coaches, sent by the Church from over 20 locations, who returned to their communities to give primary-school children a biblical worldview.

Since then more than 200 children have gone back to school, the Church has baptised more than 500 people, and in some communities teenage pregnancies have all but disappeared. Almost 10,000 children in Rwanda alone are now being discipled through the Church in weekly football programmes, and since April 2024 several thousand more in Kenya.