Spanish footballer Niko Williams left the pitch after receiving his gold medal as a member of the winning team in the World Cup final and reached up to hand his medal to his mother. Years earlier, while pregnant with his older brother Inãki, Maria Williams had crossed the Sahara Desert from Ghana with Felix, her husband, seeking a better life.
Inãki, also a footballer, and who played for Ghana in the qualifiers for the World Cup, told the Guardian of the day his mother told him the family story. ” I didn’t know they had crossed the desert by foot. I knew my dad had problems with the soles of his feet but not that it was because he had walked barefooted across the Sahara sand at 40, 50 degrees.
“They did part in a truck, one of those with the open back, 40 people packed in, then walked days,” Williams continues. “People fell, left along the way, people they buried. It’s dangerous: there are thieves waiting, rapes, suffering. Some are tricked into it. Traffickers get paid and then halfway say: ‘The journey ends here.’ Chuck you out, leave you with nothing: no water, no food. Kids, old people, women. People go not knowing what’s ahead, if they’ll make it. My mum said: ‘If I knew, I would have stayed.’ She was pregnant with me but didn’t know.
“They reached Melilla, climbed the fence and the civil guard detained them. They didn’t have papers and came as migrants, so you get sent back. When they were in jail a lawyer from [the Catholic aid organisation] Caritas who spoke English said: ‘The only thing you can try is tell them you’re from a country at war.’ They tore up their Ghanaian papers and said they were from Liberia to apply for political asylum. Thanks to him, we arrived in Bilbao.”
Inãki mentored his little brother, and both became football stars through the Athletic Club football academy, both joining the top team. They are the first full brothers to play in a World Cup.
Iñaki Mardones – which is where Williams got his name – is a “priest who became his godfather and their guardian. Clothes came from the church. There wasn’t much, but Williams insists: ‘I had food, something to wear, and compared to a many, many, people, I was rich. My parents’ story told me that.’”
Felix worked as a cleaner in Spain, moving to London alone, cleaning tables in a shopping centre to provide for the family.
But it was their strong Christian faith that also sustained the family. Nico has been very open about his faith on social media (see main pic). On the day of the World Cup, he also posted:
Nico Williams is part of a Spanish team with strong Christians, with head Coach De la Fuente, Nico, and three other players known to be Christians.