Fiji Now Out Of Soccer

Soccer And Union At Noumea Games

From a Suva Correspondent

Fiji soccer players, who

played in the first South Pacific Games at Suva, are up in arms about a decision of the Fiji Football Association not to send a team to the Second South Pacific Games in Noumea in De cember because of the “prohi bitive costs”. rE decision was reached at a meeting of FFA officials held at Suva late in March.

Players told PlM’s correspondent that the excuse of “prohibitive costs” of sending a team was a very poor one.

“Knowing that we would need a lot of money to send a team our size, the association should have organised a fund-raising campaign soon after the first games at Suva,” said one player.

“In any case the association should have a lot of money in the kitty from inter-district matches. These are held annually and bring in more than £l,OOO at a time.”

May Be NZ Tour

The players said that Fiji has sent only one soccer team overseas, and this was to Australia in 1962.

There is talk of sending a team to New Zealand in preference to the South Pacific Games but the players would rather go to Noumea, because they think it is a more important occasion.

At the first South Pacific Games in 1963 the Fiji team took the silver medal in the soccer competition after going down to Noumea in the final.

The Fiji boys were hoping for a revenge on the New Caledonians’ own ground but they have been dis appointed.

Six teams took part in the competi tion at the Suva Games, and with the withdrawal of the Fiji entry it appears that there will again be six teams at Noumea.

New Hebrides, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Papua-New Guinea, and the Solomons have entered again, with Wallis and Futuna entering for the first time.

The president of the Fiji association,

Mr. M. V. Pillai, has said that apart from the cost of sending a Fiji team being prohibitive, it was also felt that because the Games are to be held in December, out of the Fiji soccer season, players would not be at their best.

He explained that the association’s treasurer had estimated that to send a group of 17 players and two officials to the Games would cost the association about £2,400, a sum it “could not afford at present.”

The Fiji Amateur Sports Association. the mother body of sporting organisations in Fiji, had estimated

a figure of between £1,600 and £l,BOO, which covered travel and subsistence, The difference in the two estimates is because the association took into account camping and training in the Colony to bring a team up to the necessary standard.

The FFA is the second major Fiji sports association to decide that it will not go to Noumea in December, The first was the Fiji Rugby Union, which decided last year that the changed dates for the games made it impracticable for a representative team to be kept together so long after the end of the Fiji Rugby season.