Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) is working towards the return of domestic football in July following the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, a group of VFF’s technical team and provincial football administrators went through an intense training exercise that focused on restarting the game after the COVID-19 lockdown measures, which has impacted many athletes in Vanuatu.

Football was placed on hold due to the pandemic in March but when it resumes, regional knockout matches while take place in various provinces in early July, while youth leagues will also begin alongside a women’s knockout competition in Port Vila.

The men’s National League Championship will begin in August with the National Super League starting in September. Teams have been training since last month and will be ready to hit the ground running. A new season will then begin in October.

The Member Association Administration Workshop ran from June 15-19 at the Teouma Academy.

Many departments from VFF were in attendance, including Refereeing, Competitions, Technical, and the Administration and Finance team.

All departments were invited to provide presentations of their activity plans for the rest of the year that will be jointly carried out with the administrators in their respective provinces.

The Competitions department highlighted the use of Comet which is a comprehensive football management IT system, designed to centralise all records related to football clubs, matches and competitions and automate the key business processes.

The provincial administrators covered all functionalities required for their Member Association to use Comet and make their job easier; and to enable integrity and transparency of information and processes across the archipelago.

They went through key functional modules of Comet to manage clubs, stadiums and players in the provinces.

Using this system to its full potential will allow VFF to accumulate better data that will be a valuable resource in the future.

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