Peka, Wallace call for Morobe to prepare
The National, Monday October 28th, 2013
TWO former Papua New Guinea sports representatives and Morobe son’s John Peka and Amos Wallace yesterday in Lae, Morobe, called on sports administrators and representatives from the nine districts to attend a meeting which is scheduled for next month.
The meeting will held at the 2014 PNG Games Host Organisation Committee office located inside the Sir Ignatius Kilage Indoor stadium on Saturday November 9 and will start at 10am.
Peka had represented the country four times in soccer when he participated in the South Pacific Games that was held in Port Moresby in 1969, Tahiti (1971), Guam (1975) and Fiji in 1979 while teammate Wallace was with him in the ‘79’ SP Games in the sport of basketball and went on to play semi-professional basketball in Manila, Philippines in 1982 and represented PNG the following year (1983) at the South Pacific Games in Western Samoa.
Both Peka and Wallace said the meeting is about the formation of Morobe Country Sports Association to identify talents in soccer, basketball, volleyball, netball and darts.
They said Morobe, being one of the largest provinces in population and land area should be a leader in sports but it all started at the district level. They added that as the province would be hosting the next PNG Games they need to start preparing now. One of the agenda is to put in place a caretaker committee that will work with the districts to keep the youths’ interest intact.
Wallace said each district must organise itself and have in place sports associations in the ward and local level government council areas which will come under the umbrella of the district sport association that will automatically be part of the provincial sports office.
He said Huon Gulf had set the example for the other eight districts to organise themselves and get their systems in place.He said with an organised district sports office it would be easier to access funding for infrastructure development and the building of other facilities for the youths of the districts to play on.