NMIFA takes another step toward goal

Northern Mariana Islands Football (Soccer) Association took a huge step toward accomplishing its goal of growing the sport in the Commonwealth, as over 300 young athletes took American Memorial Park by storm Saturday during the start of the association’s inaugural season.

In an interview, NMIFA president Jerry Tan expressed his confidence that the sport is heading in the right direction, and remains hopeful that the understanding of the game will boom as the sport grows.

“One of the most encouraging signs is the high turnout of all the kids,” Tan said. “In the past, the younger ones would loose their interest as they grow older, but as you can see, we have a good turnout for players between 13 and 18 years of age.”

Tan also pointed out that a big boost to luring the elder teens to competing and taking part in the league is NMIFA’s investment in providing real goals as opposed to the cones that were used in the past.

“They get attracted to the game and now they feel they’re playing real soccer,” he said. “They see the goal instead of just cones, which some may think is just for kids and that’s why they don’t continue, but now, they see how to play the game and have something to focus on when going to score.”

With that, Tan said NMIFA would continue to commit to investing in the sport with one of the main goals being to improve understanding of the game.

“We’re going to have more clinics for coaches and referees so parents who are interested can get involved,” he said. “We’re seriously looking into recruiting a certified coach whose purpose is to develop the program full time and to take the sport to the next level.”

Tan also remains confident that because the program features a solid number of young players, the future of the sport would be bright.

“Majority of these players are very young and I’m confident that with all the investments and promotion of the sport, they will continue to have interest even after their teenage years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tan disclosed that NMIFA has been invited to field a team to a 13-and-under tournament next year.

“I’m not sure if we’re ready, but definitely, our goal with the full time coach is to train athletes and identify players to develop national teams to compete in future international events,” he said. “At least to compete with Guam first…[Guam Football Association] has been very helpful and want to do more, so we could either travel to Guam for competition or they could come here.”

With the recruitment of a full-time coach, as well as more clinics and international competitions up ahead, Tan reiterated that NMIFA is doing what it can to increase the number of active players from the over 300 to 1,000 within two years.