\n\t\t\t\tD&Q Saipan resident manager Max P. Kretzers, third left, turns over the check to NMIFA president Jerry Tan. The check represents part of the $30,000 sponsorship to the Dove Women\u2019s Football League and NMIFA\u2019s women\u2019s football program. Also in the photo are the league\u2019s players, NMIFA general secretary Ross Zapanta, left, and NMIFA Executive Committee member Vickie Izuka, right. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nD&Q Saipan through one of its suppliers, Unilever, has committed $30,000 for NMIFA\u2019s women\u2019s program for three years. D&Q Saipan resident manager Max P. Kretzers turned in part of the sponsorship money to NMIFA president Jerry Tan in a brief ceremony yesterday at the Oleai Sports Complex Field. Representatives of various football clubs and several female players were present to witness the turnover ceremony.<\/p>\n
As part of the agreement, NMIFA\u2019s women\u2019s league will now be called Dove Women\u2019s Football League. Dove is one of the Unilever products D&Q distributes here and in Guam.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are happy to be part of this women\u2019s league as we want to help make the sport stronger in the CNMI and encourage more female players to come out and join soccer,\u201d Kretzers said. \u201cOur supplier, Unilever, has some available funds and they are glad to help. Our previous business development manager encourages as to get into sports and connect our products with the sports community so this partnership really fits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tan said the sponsorship money will be used to defray the cost of running the league and other programs for women\u2019s football, such as clinics and more tournaments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very grateful to D&Q and its supplier, Unilever for their support. As you know, NMIFA is a non-profit group and it\u2019s really costly to run a program, such as the women\u2019s league, yearound. As much as possible we want to minimize the charges and fees that we have to impose to teams, players, and club, so this sponsorship will really help realize that goal,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s (sponsorship) great news to our female players because usually it\u2019s our men\u2019s teams that get help from sponsors. On behalf of NMIFA and its executive and women\u2019s committee, I would like to say thank you to D&Q and Unilever. Their sponsorship just made it more affordable for teams and players to join the league. Also, the sponsorship is very timely because more young female players are into the program,\u201d Tan added.<\/p>\n
Seven teams are competing in the Dove Women\u2019s Football League and majority of them are U18 players. Several players in the women\u2019s league are also suiting up for various clubs that are participating in NMIFA\u2019s spring and fall youth leagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Northern Mariana Islands Football Association and D&Q Saipan have reached an agreement recently for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":193429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,2722,2723,198],"class_list":["post-193428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-dove-women","tag-football-league","tag-nmifa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193428","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}