- a financial burden

Soccer tournament - a financial burden

By Osea Bola

HOSTING the Melanesian Cup Championship is becoming a costly exercise sustaining more debts than profits since its inception in 1988.

While the tournament rightly serves its purpose of promoting soccer in the region and strengthening cultural links between the Melanesian countries, the tournament is now a burden and is not financially viable.

Previous hosts, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and New Caledonia all accumu lated debts and the recent Port Vila tournament was no exception even though it was held to coincide with Vanuatu’s 12th anniversary celebr ations.

The local crowd who turned up in good numbers to watch Vanuatu’s national sport failed to provide the necessary income to at least break even.

The Port Vila tournament had a VT 16,000,000 budget.

Vanuatu Soccer Federation (VSF) finance committee chairman Mark Stafford estimated the hosts would lose more than VT2,000,000. He said the VSF planned to have fundraising drives to offset the debts incurred from providing transportation and accom modation for the three visiting teams - Fiji, Solomon Islands and New Cale donia during their 10-day stay in Vila.

Fiji FA also suffered the same financial fate when it hosted the tournament in 1989 as did New Caledonia in 1990.

Billetting the teams in the best hotels and providing the best reception for them has been the tradition with the

financial viability of secondary import

ance.

“That has been the Melanesian tradition which is to make your visitors happy and pay the debts later,”

Stafford said.

“I think we should draw a line somewhere and make this tournament financially affordable rather than being a burden now and then.”

The technical committee meeting in Vila made suggestions to help in the successful staging of future tourna ments.

These included: * FIFA, the world soccer body,

being asked to provide financial assist ance for future tournaments; * The sponsorship of future tourna ments by a single sponsor being negotiated by FIFA; * All participating countries to pay their own expenses including travel and accommodation but with the gate

takings shared;

* The staging of the tournament on a two-yearly basis. Solomon Islands has won the bid to host the tournament in 1994.

All of these proposals will be in cluded in the Melanesian Cup charter which will be prepared by Fiji FA president Dr Shamsu Dean Sahu Khan to be approved by the participating countries when tabled in February.

The last minute withdrawal of Pa pua New Guinea also contributed to the loss. The hosts had to reprint tickets and souvenir programs. The continued non-participation of PNG in the tour nament was also raised but regulations governing this are expected to be included in the tournament’s charter. n

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