{"id":378500,"date":"2022-10-27T06:06:27","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T20:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=378500"},"modified":"2022-10-27T06:06:27","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T20:06:27","slug":"shaikh-salman-reaffirms-support-to-nmifa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/shaikh-salman-reaffirms-support-to-nmifa\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaikh Salman reaffirms support to NMIFA"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
In this combo photo, Asian Football Confederation president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, left, shakes hands with Northern Mariana Islands Football Association president Jerry Tan after presenting Tan a pennant during the latter\u2019s visit at the AFC Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last Tuesday. Tan, right photo, presents Shaikh Salman an island shirt. (AFC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia\u2014Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, met with Jerry Tan, president of the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, here in Malaysia\u2019s capital last Tuesday, Oct. 25.<\/p>\n

After their membership application was granted by the 30th AFC Congress in December 2020, NMIFA became the newest member of the AFC and the Asian football family, bringing the AFC\u2019s membership to a total of 47, distributed over the vast continent.<\/p>\n

However, even before NMIFA was given full membership, they were working closely with the AFC as an associate member to improve the standards of football on the islands under the leadership of Tan, which the AFC president emphasized.<\/p>\n

\u201cNMIFA technically joined the AFC as a full member just recently, but football is well-entrenched and has continued to develop in popularity and participation in Northern Mariana Islands, owing mostly to the efforts of president Tan and his team,\u201d Shaikh Salman added.<\/p>\n

The AFC president also mentioned the practical assistance offered by the AFC\u2019s development funds to the NMIFA and how it was translating into outcomes on the ground, namely the participation of NMIFA teams in the AFC\u2019s age-group events.<\/p>\n

\u201cNMIFA has purposefully used the AFC\u2019s development funds in line with their aims to improve the game, and their recent participation in the AFC U17 Asian Cup qualifying stages is great news,\u201d Shaikh Salman remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe participation of the Northern Mariana Islands U17 squad tangibly reflects the impact of the AFC\u2019s development programs and provides comfort to us that our member associations are on the right track, generating optimism for a bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tan discussed the NMIFA\u2019s future intentions, including how they hope to work closely with Asian football\u2019s governing body to raise the bar by involving all segments of the people in order to popularize the game.<\/p>\n

The NMIFA president thanked Shaikh Salman for helping their passage to full membership and expressed his gratitude for the AFC\u2019s long-term commitment to the Northern Mariana Islands football future. (AFC)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia\u2014Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, met…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":378466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[198],"class_list":["post-378500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-nmifa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378500","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}