The second season of the Solrais Women’s Premier League has begun in the Solomon Islands.
The competition has expanded following a successful inaugural campaign and 10 teams will participate in the 2021 season.
Four fixtures took place during the weekend and Frigates United started with a 6-0 win over Ha’arosia FC, Solright FC topped Haura FC 4-1, while the RSIPF Royals beat Naha FC 3-0, and Marist FC defeated Borderline United by the same score.
Koloale finished second last year and they were due to open their campaign against West Honiara on Wednesday.
Crystal Bakolo is the player-coach for Koloale and welcomed the expansion of the competition.
“I was overwhelmed with joy when the Women’s Premier League was announced and launched last year,” she told the Pasifika Sisters website.
“I was thinking, if this had been done ten years ago, we could have won some medals in the Pacific Games or the OFC tournaments, but I’m very grateful and happy that the league is up and running. I like the way it was set up, by having a women’s league with board members too.”
In Fiji, the Digicel Premier League made a return following the Easter break and Lautoka sit atop the standings after their 1-0 win over Suva on Sunday.
After five rounds, only three points separate the top six sides in the eight-team league.
In the weekend’s other fixtures, Nadi and Labasa played out a goalless draw, Rewa beat Nadroga 3-0, and Navua scored their first win of the season with a 1-0 win over Ba after substitute Apisai Smith registered a late strike.
The Digicel Women’s Super League will make a return on Saturday following a two-week hiatus.
The Super Ligue in New Caledonia will get underway this weekend following the removal of COVID-19 restrictions in the country.
The competition was meant to begin last month but was delayed due to coronavirus concerns; Tiga Sport are the defending champions.
Matches will be streamed on their Facebook page and YouTube channel. The draw for this week can be found here.
New Caledonia’s Super Ligue Futsal competition will recommence this week.
New Zealand’s new National League has continued at full speed and Western Springs AFC lead the Northern League with a perfect four from four record, while Auckland City FC are also undefeated but have only played three matches.
In the Central League, Miramar Rangers, who have won three from three, are the early pacesetters with Olympic close behind with two wins and a draw.
For more information about the league, including fixtures and the points tables click here.
On Tuesday, New Zealand Football conducted the draws for their national men’s and women’s knockout cups, known as the Chatham Cup and the Football Foundation Kate Sheppard Cup respectively.
The tournaments will begin on the weekend of April 24-26 with a number of exciting fixtures in the preliminary round. The competitions were not held in 2020 due to COVID-19 but both have attracted large numbers of entries this year.
With the Ligue 1 on hold in Tahiti, the attention turned to the Polynesian Cup during the weekend, which is the country’s national knockout competition for men; also known as the Tahiti Cup, it features teams from Ligue 1 and 2.
AS Tefana opened the competition with a 3-0 victory over AS Mataiea before AS Dragon flexed their muscles with a 7-4 win against Manu Ura.
In the other matches, Pueu defeated Tiare Anani 7-1, Taiarapu beat Papara 5-1, Central topped Tohie’a 3-0, Olympic Mahina edged Temanava 2-1, Venus swept past Tiare Hinano 4-0, and Arue emerged victorious 1-0 over Papenoo.
The women’s tournament – known as The President’s Cup – also got underway and Mataiea beat the Jeunes Tahitiens 12-0, Mira defeated Teva Import 4-2 and Te U’i Tefana hammered Pueu 17-0.
For the past two months, Football Federation Samoa have run a business house football competition.
Twenty-nine teams took part and it concluded last week with the Ministry of Health team claiming victory.
Vanuatu Football Federation held a workshop this week to educate staff on player registrations for COMET.
Meanwhile, in Tonga more than 600 schoolchildren took part in a futsal event recently that marked the introduction of futsal to the northern island group of Vava’u.
The event is a Just Play initiative and will run across eight weeks, featuring 32 teams.
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