August 7 – Criticised for travelling via private jet on a whistlestop tour of a number of Pacific Rim nations during the group stages of the Women’s World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was back amongst Oceania confederation nations as the last 16 knockout round was kicking off.
Infantino first visited Vanuatu (population about 319,000 across roughly 80 islands), before travelling to Fiji (population 904,000 across more than 300 islands).
In Vanuatu he met with Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau and FIFA Vice-President and Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) President Lambert Maltock – who he had already spent time with in New Zealand at the start of the Women’s World Cup. But nothing beats a home visit when political favours are being traded on the lobbying merry-go-round.
“The FIFA President highlighted the need for further collaboration between FIFA, OFC, VFF and the Ni-Vanuatu government to secure more land for new football facilities both within and outside the capital Port Vila,” said FIFA.
But with so many islands where do you start? However, Vanuatu know how to win the FIFA president’s favour, having him unveil the ‘King Pelé Football Field’, to make the Pacific Island nation the first in the region to heed Infantino’s global instruction to honour the late Brazilian legend, who passed away on 29 December 2022.
They then played a match. The Ni-Vanuatu legends of the national side – that finished second in the 1998 Melanesian Cup and defeated New Zealand 4-2 in the 2004 OFC Nations Cup – then joined Infantino and the FIFA Legends at the Freshwater Stadium, which was built with $4.15 million of FIFA Forward funding.
After the successful visit and promises of lots more money to come to spread the FIFA love across the 80-odd islands, Infantino jetted off to Fiji where he opened new football facilities and signed an agreement to support the building of a state-of-the-art high performance centre.
Here he met with Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, the Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad and an important political ally (vote) within FIFA’s decision making bodies, Fiji Football Association (FFA) President and FIFA Council member Rajesh Patel, plus other government officials.
While Fiji may have missed a political trick by not opening a stadium in Pele’s name, Infantino did inaugurate a new fitness centre named after Pelé, and a futsal pitch built with the support of FIFA Forward grants. Infantino also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government to launch a Football for Schools project in the country.
With no Pele pitch to play on, or perhaps because the FIFA Legends’ agents won’t let their players play twice in two days, Gianni jetted back to the grind of Women’s World Cup duties.
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