The Presidents, General Secretaries and Technical Directors of Oceania’s Member Associations have spent the past three days going over the reform processes FIFA, as the world governing body, have begun implementing and the effect they could have on the development programmes of each federation.
FIFA Development Manager for Oceania Eva Pasquier says it was important for FIFA to bring this seminar to Oceania.
“The main aim of this seminar was to update the federations on the new programmes and activities that we have, on the governance and reforms that are going to be activated from the previous congresses which will have a lot of impact on the offerings we have and also on the requirements of the federations,” Pasquier says.
“Coming together was very important because it’s not only us talking to them, but also them talking to us, and finally them talking amongst themselves because the networking factor of such a seminar is very important.”
While measuring the immediate success of the seminar is difficult, Pasquier feels confident the message has been delivered and the FIFA’s objectives met.
“I really have a feeling that the people captured what we tried to do and were very active in the workshops. On top of that the outcome of the exercises were really very promising so I believe that it was a good seminar.” She says.
“At the moment, I would say yes the objectives we set out have been achieved. But we have to see, we’ve given each of the federations some homework and we will be able to say clearly, yes or no, once they come back in November for the FIFA Financial Seminar with their homework done – or not done.”
For Football Federation Samoa CEO Sarai Bareman the seminar, while intensive, has given her a renewed feeling of excitement about the future.
“It’s opened up my mind to what we can do over the next four or five years – it’s exciting stuff,” Bareman says.
“These sorts of regional seminars are so good because you’re in a room with people who come from a similar situation as we are in. Tonga, Cook Islands and American Samoa are small member associations in the exact same situation, so not only do we get the information from FIFA we get to discuss it with others as well.”
The FIFA/OFC Development Seminar was held over three days at the Rendezvous Hotel in Auckland, New Zealand from 14-16 September 2013.