East Asian Football Federation president Junji Ogura of Japan made a brief visit to Saipan over the weekend and gave an update on Northern Mariana Islands Football Association\u2019s application for membership in the Asian Football Confederation.<\/p>\n
Ogura arrived on Saipan Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning NMIFA president Jerry Tan accompanied the EAFF president to the Oleai Sports Complex Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are honored to have Mr. Oguro on Saipan. This visit gave us a chance to show him how we do things here for the development of football,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also take this opportunity to thank him for giving us technical and financial assistance. He has been very helpful in bringing a new coach for our nationals teams, providing seminars for referees and coaches, and donating equipment to the association,\u201d the NMIFA head added.<\/p>\n
While watching the CNMI Men\u2019s Football Team in its last training session on Saipan before leaving for Guam, Tan also briefed Ogura about the Oleai field and other facilities NMIFA is using for its tournaments.<\/p>\n
Tan explained all these facilities are not owned by NMIFA, thus it will be very important for the association to have its own fields through the help of EAFF, AFC, and FIFA in the future.<\/p>\n
Ogura in an interview with Saipan Tribune said they may have some good news for NMIFA this summer as far as the association\u2019s application for membership to AFC is concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Oceania Football Confederation will be having a meeting this June and in that meeting, we will be seeking the \u2018permission or release\u2019 of Northern Mariana Islands from their zone, so NMIFA can proceed with its application for AFC membership,\u201d Ogura said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are positive that OFC will grant permission to the CNMI,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
But Ogura reminded NMIFA that the association has a lot of things to do to gain membership to AFC.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst is to have various football clubs. There should be teams in various age groups and men\u2019s and women\u2019s adults divisions. Having regular programs for schools are also factors that will affect NMIFA\u2019s application for membership to AFC. Trained coaches and referees are needed, too. Lastly, you need facilities,\u201d Oguro said.<\/p>\n
Ogura, who is a senior vice president for Japan Football Association and an executive committee member of AFC and FIFA, said when all these things are put into place, he is confident NMIFA will be granted membership to AFC.<\/p>\n
Ogura left Saipan Monday morning to watch the East Asian Football Championship 2010 Preliminary Competition in Guam. The tournament will run from March 11 to 15 at the Leo Palace Resort with the CNMI, Guam, Mongolia, and Macau battling for a slot to EAFF\u2019s semifinal round, which will be played this August in Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
East Asian Football Federation president Junji Ogura of Japan made a brief visit to Saipan over the weekend and gave an update on Northern Mariana Islands Football Association\u2019s application for membership in the Asian Football Confederation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}