As the year draws to a close, we reflect on our work and how far we have gone with player registration and transfers in 2019, and areas of expected focus for 2020.
In 2019, Vanuatu Football Federation recorded over hundred transfer of players and twenty-one of them are international transfers mostly to and from Solomon Islands, Fiji and New Zealand.
Most of the domestic transfers were from the finished Amicale Football Club by and large underlying cause from the club unable to play in the Port Vila league anymore.
Also a high number of transferred players were recorded to Malampa Revivors in January for the 2019 Oceania Champions League in Kone New Caledonia.
VFF also registered 1768 players under 67 clubs with the highest from Galaxy FC and Malampa Revivors FC and Tafea Football Club in the Port Vila FA.
The highest number of registration were recorded during the Youth League Championship registration and Ruerue FC from Penama registered most youth players for the youth tournament.
According to the competition department of VFF, a lot of work is still needed to polish up the data collected from the player registrations and also more awareness to MAs on the process of registration.
It is difficult when most of the islands do not have access to proper civil registry services which is the basis of a football player registration.
In June 2019, Vanuatu government emphasised its stance on decentralising Civil Registry services to the people of Vanuatu and the Department has established operations in TORBA, SANMA, PENAMA, MALAMPA, SHEFA, TAFEA provinces.
MAs must encourage players to make their National ID and this is something VFF will focus on in 2020.
