Last week, the 3rd Annual Sirubai Beach Soccer Tournament 2020 was held at Kubolia Beach Soccer Stadium in Vella Island.
The tournament was held at Kubolia Beach Soccer Stadium from 1st to 6th January 2020 with a total of 18 teams that participated in the tournament. A new initiative that the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) was the launching of Beach Soccer Awareness Stall during the cause of the event. Activities that took place were as follows;
- Promoting beach Soccer to grass-root youths through oral presentation
- Displaying of national Bilikiki Jessy to motivate players in their future endeavors in this football code
- Free Beach Soccer World Cup Highlights was displayed for the public so that they can learn from the highest display of beach soccer at the world cup level.
- Donation of Beach Soccer Balls to participating teams; the local organizing committee decides to donate balls to participating teams as this is one of the major setbacks of youths not participating in sports.
- There were three sets of training bibs that were given by SIFF to LOC to be used during the tournament.
Mr. Galimama Atani acknowledge the new initiative taken by SIFF and Sirubai Voko Tribe Association (SVTA) by bringing such support to the grassroots level. All these would not be possible without the strategy idea of the community of Pusiju and technical advice from the LOC of the tournament.
Mr. Presley Vuala (LOC Chairman), thank the sports authority for trusting his committee and community to host the 1 x week tournament. Mr. Vuala highlighted that this community initiative is meant to support the surrounding communities and the indirect benefit that each community will attain is the knowledge, skills and know-how to duplicate a similar approach to their own setting.
The purpose of this activity was to promote this football code in rural areas. The recent international tour of the National Bilikiki team has proved that grassroots players can bring about positive change to the competency of the team with the natural talents and skills they possess.
The LOC was informally advised that 2 communities are going to duplicate this approach and eventually create a new Beach Soccer Field for their youths in their own community.
Mr. Benjamin Mela (former Bilikiki Player), calls on football authority to invest more in such community initiative to develop beach Soccer code in our islands. He further admits that such an event can be operational at a very minimal cost and this is what WFA and SIFF can count on to implement its strategy.
The event was masterminded by Sirubai Voko Tribe Association (SVTA) under its youths and sports division in collaboration with Western Football Association (WFA) and in-kind support from SIFF and other companies (Solomon Telekom and Sol rice Company).
The LOC of this annual tournament is very optimistic about the future of this tournament and look forward to receiving more technical activities from WFA and SIFF in the future.
Courtesy: Henry Kaniki
