Tourney ends on a high

By PATRICIA KEAMO
THE maiden edition of the Oceania Football Confederation Women’s Champions League successfully staged in Port Moresby’s Sir Hubert Murray Stadium ended on a high note as New Caledonian champions AS Academy Feminine claimed the honours on Saturday.
Four representative clubs from New Caledonia, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Samoa convened in Port Moresby to join Papua New Guinea’s

Hekari United in a ten-day football fest from June 1-10 that paved way for women’s football development in the region, especially with the Fifa Women’s World Cup to be staged in Australia and New Zealand next month.
OFC’s competition director Chris Kemp described the historic five match days as ‘highly competitive’ with the confederation impressed with the overall outcome of the tournament.
“We’ve been really encouraged by the overall level of competitiveness between all of the teams and it’s been a fantastic tournament. We’re happy with the way it was delivered. The stadium here has been superb,” said Kemp.
Fifa’s women’s football competitions manager Gianluca Famigli who made the long journey to Port Moresby from Zurich, Switzerland, was full of praise and optimism about the potential for women’s football in Oceania.
“The OFC Women’s Champions League has clearly demonstrated that the Pacific region has great potential,” Famigli said.
“The players are talented, and each team is clearly trying to professionalise themselves with their roles, the coaching staff and the coaching practice.”
For the team on the ground, the local organising committee that has been tasked to organise the match and training venues, logistics, security and hospitality management for the visiting teams expressed their satisfaction on the outcome of the tournament, but not without a few challenges along the way.
Committee chairman Gordon Manub said they started preparation for the tournament since the beginning of the year as the initial date for the tournament was in March, but was later deferred to this month.
“We’re happy that we’ve come this far through all the planning and support that we got from our major sponsors and partners,” Manub said.
“It’s a testament of the work that they’ve been putting to bring all of these teams right across the region as far as where is New Caledonia, bringing them here to Port Moresby to compete.”
Participating teams
AS Academy Feminine – the New Caledonian club is an all-female football organisation formed by head coach Coralie Bretegnier and striker Christelle Wahnawe. They were the only team that won all four of their matches to record 12 competition points and were crowned champions.
Their defender and captain Edsy Matao was given the golden ball award for her outstanding performance in leading the team’s defence.
Hekari United – the PNG representative lost only one match, conceded two goals and scored the highest number of goals in the tournament, 15. Headed by Ericson Komeng, Hekari finished second and was awarded the fair play team of the tournament with their skipper and prolific striker Marie Kaipu taking out the first golden boot award having recorded nine goals.
Koloale FC – The Solomon Islands side finished third in the tournament after winning two of their four matches against Kiwi and Labasa respectively. Headed by Crystal Bakolo, Koloale’s goalkeeper Sylvester Maenu’u was awarded the golden glove honours for her consistent efforts in producing a number of outstanding saves to keep her side competitive throughout their campaign.
Labasa FC – despite winning only one match to finish fourth, the Fijian club made history to win the first match of the inaugural women’s champions league and their star striker Sofi Diyalowai scored the first goal of the tournament.
Kiwi FC – The Samoan side lost all their matches, three were by huge margins but their team spirit and friendly personality in showing good sportsmanship on and off the field was well recognised by everyone. Headed by player-coach Leti Tamasese, the team had the youngest player of the tournament, 13-year-old striker Florencina Kalifa who was the highlight of their campaign. Kalifa scored the Samoan team’s only goal in the tournament.

Apart from focusing on the tournament and their training schedules under Port Moresby’s heat, the teams had time to engage with the community through schools visits at Primary Schools around the nation’s capital as well as visiting a few local markets.

Club reactions
Christelle Wah-nawe, AS Academy Feminine striker: “The hospitality in PNG was very kind, polite and welcoming. We gained a good number of local supporters and we’ll never be able to thank them enough”.
Jotivini Tabua, Labasa FC captain: “I enjoyed the food here and the friendly faces of the fans and everyone. We were also happy to see a few of our supporters here come out with Fiji flags to cheer us from the grandstand”.
Sylvester Mae-nu’u, Koloale goalkeeper: “Being in PNG for the tournament was very nice and a different experience for us, very friendly too. Everywhere we go, we have police escorting us with the siren on, we don’t have that so that was different but good experience”.
Leti Tamasese, Kiwi FC head coach – “Our girls had a great time, making friends and learning throughout the tournament. I personally treasure the hospitality of our bus driver Raymond Lohia, we received the best support and hospitality”.
Ericson Kom-eng, Hekari United head coach: “As the host club, I welcomed all the teams to PNG before the tournament started and now I wish them all the best in their local competition and a safe journey back home”.
Chris Kemp, OFC competition director: “We’re very delighted with the quality of the football, the safety and security here in Port Moresby. All of the women have had a fantastic time out and amongst the communities, the schools, visiting the markets”.

Media coverage
OFC’s media and communications manager Matt Brown commended local media for a fantastic and wider coverage of the tournament from the newspapers, online, television and radio.
“It’s brilliant, great coverage every day to wake up to coverage to open the papers to see photos, articles, variety of articles, there are some features on players,” Brown said.
“Really good engagement and every media conference there were quite a number of journalists doing interviews and wanting to cover the games. So from an OFC perspective media coverage here was superb.”

Women’s football development
OFC’s women’s football manager Emma Evans said the introduction of the women’s champions league was long time coming and paved way for development of women’s football in the region.
“It’s the first ever time we’ve ran an international club competition for women across our region and one of the really exciting things about it is in the coming years we will see Fifa launch a Women’s Club World Cup like they have for the men,” Evans said.

“National teams have the opportunity to play at a Fifa Women’s World Cup but if one of our club teams have the opportunity to play at a club World Cup too, it’s incredible.”
Apart from the clubs and their players, the tournament has seen female referees engaged to officiate the matches with about eight in total, including PNG’s own referee Stephanie Minan appointed as an assistant referee.

Two female commentators Elizabeth Osifelo and Lavinia Yalovi were also brought on to call the game alongside PNG’s football commentator Jeremy Mogi.
“With our education and visibility pillars in the All In strategy, we really wanted to make sure that we weren’t just focusing on coaches and referees, like these traditional pathways that have existed,” she said.
“So everyone you see at this tournament, whether it’s a coach, a referee, the commentators, they will be supported by OFC over the coming years to make sure that they’re able to perform to the best of their ability and know that they have all of Oceania behind them.”/
Going forward, OFC plans to have all 11 member nations affiliated to compete in the tournament.

Similar to the men, the women’s tournament serves as qualifier for the Fifa Women’s Club World Cup which the governing body of football has already confirmed would be staged in the near future.
“Fifa has already confirmed that there will be a Women’s Club World Cup. They have not confirmed the time frame for it,” said OFC competition director Chris Kemp.

“We are using this competition to introduce an international women’s club competition into our region and we expected to grow next year.
“We’re going to be playing it every year and we expect to grow each year. When Fifa announced the Women’s Club World Cup, we are ready to go with a with a winner from our competition.”