great sportsman

Loss of a great sportsman

By Atama Raganivatu

The South Pacific lost one of its foremost sports administratord when Napoleon Spitz died at

Papeete recently after a fall. He was 64, Spitz initially made his mark as a soccer player, being a keystone of the Tahiti rep resentative side from 1949 to 1961. He was a robust “old fashioned type” centre forward and his non-nonsense approach extended beyond the soccer pitch.

Spitz entered politics in 1982, when elected to French Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly as the Councillor for Tuamotu Gambier. He later served as the President of the Commission for Culture and Traditional Arts and the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.

However, it is in the field of sports administration that Spitz will be best remembered. The dominating figure in Tahitian soccer from the day he became the Ligueand Football be Polynesie Francaise’s first president in 1969, he painstakingly built the local game’ s infrastructure until it was the byword for organisational competence compe tence throughout the region.

His finest moment came in 1990 the year Tahiti joined FIFA, international soc cer’s ruling body, as a full member. This was achieved despite the objection of France, which resented it overseas territo ry gaining such a high profile as a separate entity.

A founding member of the South Pacific Games Federation, Spitz’s influence with in the body was demonstrated during the 1979 Games in Suva when he persuaded his fellow organisers to switch the soccer final from a Sunday in order to accommo date the star Tahitian player a Mormon, who was forbidden to play on the Sabbath!

Spitz was, at the time of his death.

Chairman of the 1995 South Pacific Games Organising Committee. Other Committee members insisted than that, such was the momentum created by him, the Games would still run smoothly in August.

These assurances came before France triggered the threat of a Games boycott by announcing its intention to recommence nuclear testing on Mururoa. It would be an immense shame if what promised to be a testimony to Spitz’s organisations ability is ruined but the same French pigheaded ness that he encountered while campaign ing for Tahiti’s membership of FIFA.