About Cook Islands Football Association

The Cook Islands Football Association is set to celebrate the inauguration of its goal project in 2004. The site at Matavera will house the new CIFA headquarters, the association's national football academy and two playing pitches of international standard.

When opened, it will signal a new era for the game with the national football academy set to become a fulcrum of development for future elite players identified by the association.

The CIFA is unique in that its operations are challenged by the sheer distance between the islands in the group. At the end of 2002, the CIFA welcomed the Pukapuka as its newest affilate after visiting the remote island to run coaching and refereeing clinics. Covering an area the size of Western Europe, to fly there from the main island from Rarotonga is about same time it takes to fly from New Zealand to Australia.

Despite the geographical obstacles, the CIFA has successfully run its development programmes and regularly holds competitions on a national scale, with the annual youth championship one of the more important dates on the calendar. The best youth players are identified through this exercise.

A national under 15 development national squad was selected from the 2003 National Youth Championship and performed well at the Gold Coast Champions Cup in Australia last year. In future, the best of these players will be trained at the well equipped facilities which will be available at the national football academy where Cook Islands national teams will assemble before embarking for OFC and FIFA qualifying tournaments.

With promising young players such as Campbell Best, Geoffrey Strickland, Tuka Tisam, and Steven Willis attending school in Auckland, New Zealand. All players are part of a promising core that have been earmarked or have represented the senior national team.

The CIFA currently runs a national league for its best clubs with a knock out cup organised at the end of the season. However, the most popular fixture is arguably the five-a-side competitions run prior to the start of the main season. With the lack of indoor facilities to hold proper futsal competitions, the CIFA has improvised with its outdoor version played on marked fields. The five-a-side competitions attract a broad cross-section of participants from registered club players to social players, men and women of all ages and abilities.

National League Champions
2000 Nikao Sokattack
2001 Tupapa FC
2002 Tupapa FC
2003 Tupapa FC
2004 Nikao Sokattack
2005 Nikao Sokattack