{"id":35989,"date":"2014-05-19T07:41:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-18T21:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=35989"},"modified":"2014-05-19T07:41:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-18T21:41:06","slug":"nmifa-seeks-boost-womens-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmifa-seeks-boost-womens-program\/","title":{"rendered":"NMIFA seeks to boost women\u2019s program"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"From<\/a>
From left, NMIFA general secretary Ross Zapanta, AFC WAP officials Betty Wong and Julie Teo, and NMIFA vice president Vickie Izuka pose for a photo at the NMIFA office after their meeting last Thursday.(ROSELYN B. MONROYO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Northern Mariana Islands Football Association has taken a crucial step in further strengthening its women\u2019s program by availing of Asian Football Confederation\u2019s Women\u2019s Assistance Program.<\/p>\n

Julie Teo, head of the AFC Technical Division\u2019s women\u2019s development, and Betty Wong, women\u2019s football manager of Hong Kong Football Association, were in town last week to introduce the program to all the stakeholders in the sport. The two officials met with NMIFA president Jerry Tan, general secretary Ross Zapanta, technical director Johann Noetzel, NMIFA youth and women\u2019s committee chair and vice president Vickie Izuka, media representatives, and teachers\/coaches from both the private and public schools on Saipan. The visitors discussed how the program works and the things that needed to be done to make it successful in the CNMI. <\/p>\n

Teo said WAP was a relatively new program under AFC, as it was introduced last year. Before the CNMI, nine other countries have availed of the program. The list includes Bhutan, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Myanmar, and Kyrgyzstan. WAP, according to Teo, is a development tool that aims to customize development programs, according to each federation\u2019s level of women\u2019s football and needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide recommendations, assessment, technical assistance, and other resources, such as clinics and training, to help AFC members,\u201d said Wong, a former member of Hong Kong\u2019s national team.<\/p>\n

Teo added once they assess the current state of CNMI women\u2019s football, they will provide NMIFA a \u201cto-do list\u201d and expect a periodical progress report from the association. The AFC official is aware of the lower population in the CNMI compared to other countries and that could be a challenge as far as recruitment of female players is concerned. However, because the island is small and people are not far away from each other, it is easy to get the stakeholders together and hear their concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been to many places where you need several days to contact people and get them together in one place. Here that\u2019s not a problem, so your FA has to work on that advantage,\u201d Teo said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Zapanta said they decided to have Teo and Wong meet teachers and officials from CNMI schools because NMIFA believes students will play an important role in the association\u2019s plan to further boost its women\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe schools are our biggest source of players. These are where you get to develop young and fresh talents. I hope with the assistance of WAP, their technical expertise, guidance, and resources, we will be able to recruit more and younger players,\u201d Zapanta said.
\nNMIFA, according to Izuka, so far has 320 members with age range from 15 to late 40s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no age limit, as we would like to encourage everyone to play. However, in the women\u2019s league, we accept only players in the 15-and-over age group. We may make some exceptions and accept U14, depending on the situation,\u201d Izuka said.<\/p>\n

The NMIFA vice president added that members of the women\u2019s committee are excited to work with AFC officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very interested as this will be the first time we will work together with AFC, exclusively for the women\u2019s program. We are growing and it will be great if we could get guidance from AFC on how to run the program easier and more effectively,\u201d Izuka said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Mariana Islands Football Association has taken a crucial step in further strengthening its women\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":35991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,679,198,792],"class_list":["post-35989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-football-2","tag-nmifa","tag-wap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35989","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=35989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}