Women’s Cup tours Madang

By GLORIA BAUAI
The Oceania Football Confederation Women’s Nations Cup toured Madang last weekend to grace the local competition’s grand final.
The Cup was accompanied by national women’s team captain Yvonne Gabong and striker Meagan Gunemba, and Papua New Guinea Football Association technical director Paul Isorua.
“The girls win over Fiji to claim the Cup is a historic moment which has united the country during these challenging times,” he said.
“We know that the whole country has been supporting us.
“So we’re now visiting our member associations around the country during their local activities like this (grand final) to display the Cup for them to see in person.”
Gabong said it was an honour to showcase the Cup with the hope that it would inspire youngsters to achieve their goals.
She said soccer in the country was still struggling to meet international standards, but if proper development programmes were in place, talented players would be identified and developed at an early age.
“In schools and communities where there’s interest, we must create programmes to develop talented players to be competitive internationally,” Gabong said.
Isorua said the association had been working closely with the confederation and Fifa to enhance programmes.
He said the association and Fifa would roll out a talent development scheme next year.
Meanwhile, he said the team would resume training for friendly matches against Singapore which would be held on Sept 2 and 5 in Port Moresby.
“They are tier-one Fifa international friendly matches, so they should be able to improve our ranking,” Isorua said.