WNSL playoffs deferred

By PARICIA KEAMO
THE Women’s National Soccer League quarterfinals are expected to be staged this weekend after the Papua New Guinea Football Association’s deferral of the fixtures due to issues with flights for the travelling teams.
The quarterfinals were supposed to be played in Port Moresby, Lae, Mt Hagen and Bougainville on Saturday, but due to late bookings, airlines were unable to fly the four teams.
Association general secretary Pius Letenge said arrangements were being made to get the teams to their scheduled locations before the weekend.
“The decision to defer the quarterfinals was made by (competition coordinator) Leo Jakanduo after consulting the conference coordinators,” he said. “There were some issues with booking flights for the teams that were supposed to travel to Port Moresby, Buka, Lae and Mt Hagen.
“There are 18 players each in the four teams and given the general election, there wasn’t enough space to get them all to travel on the same day.
“There was also a situation in Mt Hagen on Thursday that stopped all flights into the city, so we couldn’t get the team to Port Moresby to play Hekari United.
“But the competition and finance teams are working on sorting their flights, so we should expect the quarterfinals to be played on Saturday.”
Fixtures: Sat, June 4 – Hekari United v Mt Hagen (Port Moresby), Bara v Hamatana (Lae), Mommers v Poro (Mt Hagen), Kiara v NCD (Bougainville).