PNG Football Association

Vice president John Wesley Gonjuan said the PNGFA valued its relationship with the media, who play a vital role in development.

“Thank you for the journey this far and we look forward to continuing to work with the media into 2018 and beyond.”

He went on to say that 2018 will be another big year for football starting with the National Soccer League competition, which kicks off on January 6.

“In life there are positives and negatives. We must dwell on the positives rather than the negatives and continue to move football forward in the country.”

PNG senior men’s coach Flemming Serritslev on Monday announced his preliminary squad for the first match against Tahiti in Port Moresby at Sir John Guise Stadium.

Drawn in Group B with Tahiti and Solomon Island, PNG will be out to prove to both teams that beating them at home in the OFC Nations Cup last year is not by mistake.

PNG started off their preparation last month with the first training camp on the 25 January and the second training camp will be at the end of this month.

This was the statement made by Oceania Football Confederation and PNG Football Association President, David Chung, during the opening of the two-day maintenance seminar this week in Port Moresby.

The seminar that was run by FIFA had trainers fly in from the FIFA headquarters in Switzerland.

They were Daniel Krebs, football facilities and income generation program manager, Mark Jennings-Temple, FIFA football turf and natural grass consultant and Steven Guley, FIFA facilities consultant. 

Representatives from the FIFA/F-MARC group will be conducting the training for the 16 schools within the National Capital District that have been selected to implement the program before it is rolled out into the other provinces next year.

The FIFA 11 for Health program targets 11 to 12 year-olds and compliments the OFC’s “Just Play” program, which targets six- to eight-year-olds.

The FIFA U20 World Cup is scheduled for November 13 to December 3 this year.

The squad will move into Goroka next month for the U20 National Team selection process.

PNG Football Association congratulated the 28 players in a statement for being selected.

Ten of the 28 players were part of the senior side that lost to New Zealand in the first leg of the Olympic Qualifier at the PNGFA Academy in Lae recently.

The World Cup is only 10 months away and PNGFA stated that we are set and ready to host the other 15 nations that will be here for the tournament.

TNSL board hopes that at the conference level they will encourage more clubs to participate and then build the competition to the next level.

Board member and PNG Football Association general secretary Dimirit Mileng said there’s a lot of talent  in the grassroots competition and in the PNGFA sanctioned competitions.

He said these young talents need to be exposed at the semi-professional level.

“By playing in the conference format, we are not downgrading the level of competition but generating a competitive environment.

For the first time, the competition will be played in a two tier format consisting of the zone conference league and the national league competition.

The 12 teams will play round robin matches for ten weeks in the Southern Conference and Northern Conference.

The Southern Conference comprises clubs from the Southern region and Northern Conference comprises of Momase, New Guinea Islands and Highlands regions.

Teams in the Southern Conference are Hekari United FC, Rapatona FC, Erema FC, PS Huawei FC, Port FC Moresby and Welgris FC.

This was part of PNG Football Association talent Identification program, giving young women the opportunity to show their soccer talent.

The program was run by PNGFA women's football development officer Frederica Sakette and national U20 assistant coach Margaret Aka.

Two stations were set up with three football activities taught by two coaches at each station.

Dribbling, passing and shooting were among the basic skills the young women learned before they put them into action with some games to close out the program.

Pendamon with 30 points are leading the competition  after their final match this week with a goal against Momase Football Club, the runners up with 18 points.

Papua New Guinea prolific national striker Nil Hans,  who plays for Pendamon,  sent a long range shoot in  the 85^th minute which the Momase goal keeper couldn’t save.

Momase put on a strong combination in the second half and had several chances but couldn’t convert the efforts into something meaningful in the net.

Most of their key players did not turn up which was a setback for them in that game.