In the Solomon Islands the revamped S-League now has room for improvement according to co-opted S-League manager Joseph Boso.
“There are targets set for the future of the S-League with the introduction of youth leagues, women’s leagues, futsal and beach soccer national leagues,” he said.
“There is room for improved sponsorship, currently only ‘Our Telekom’ sponsors the S-League but there’s a market for three other companies and I believe in coming years we will have that,” he continued.
Despite the differing circumstances in the two countries, the national league in Tahiti also underwent changes ahead of the current season as the Federation Tahitienne de Football looks to improve their product as well.
“Year after year we do an evaluation to see how we stand with the numbers of members and participants,” FTF competitions manager Charles Ariiotima said.
The two Member Associations are a good example of the forward movement OFC is keen to see happening in all 11 MAs – with Club Licencing and the creation of a marketable brand being included in all future plans.
The success of the Singapore FA S-League is a mix of short and long-term activities which have the potential to be successful in any of the Oceania Member Associations according to CEO Winston Lee.
“Before you start anything you need to have goals, and especially when it comes to marketing,” Lee said.
“When you want to market a league you have to consider before and after the game – that includes talking to your customers, sponsors and fans regularly.”
The Singapore FA has implemented a number of marketing strategies that have engaged their clubs’ players in public relations and media activities to the benefit of the league’s profile. Much of that was created and driven by motivated local university students.
FIFA Performance Consultant Anter Isaac said the amount of work that Lee and the Singapore FA have put into their strategy over the past ten years is now starting to yield results.
And added that the media and marketing pathway was full of quick-win options for each of the OFC MAs to try.
“These are simple to implement and you see results from them immediately. Radio, TV and social media work on the basis that the more content you have, the more you can deliver to the public,” he said.
“The more they see, the more they read, it comes to the forefront of the public’s thinking.”
The day concluded with a return to the technical side of Club Licencing with participants breaking in to small groups to discuss the potential difficulties of implementing a national club licence system as well as what assistance MAs might require in order to get local clubs to invest.
The FIFA/OFC Development Seminar moves on to CEO/GS mentoring tomorrow before concluding with the Financial Management sector on Monday and Tuesday.