Solomon Islands Football Federation is organizing an Under-12 Festival Competition to make a selection for the Oceania Football Federation.
SIFF Media personnel, Francis Pituvaka said that the competition is ongoing from past competitions in 2006 to help identify a winner to represent the Solomons in the Oceania football games next month."This year, two teams entered to take part in the Oceania football competition so the winner and runner up from this competition will represent Solomon Islands." Mr Pituvaka said.
The 30 registered teams are divided into 5 pools, and games are now in the next stage of competition where the winner of each pool will play their runner up.
"From my observation, this year's competition is not tough comparing it to games played last year," Mr. Pituvaka said. "But the bottom line and important thing is that the children are enjoying the games."
With most schools going on a week-long break, the games are seen as "a good opportunity to engage the students by doing something good rather than seeing them roaming the streets."
Meanwhile, SIFF will introduce a competition for children less than 12 years of age.
Mr. Pituvaka said that the Futsal competition is to encourage and build the young ones who are really interested in the sport.
We want to keep their interest in Futsal and one way is to create competitions, he added.
"Competitions will also make the job easy on SIFF to choose the best players when it comes to selecting players to compete in games abroad."
The 2008 SIFF under 12 youth festival is held at the academic field at King George School and is expected to wind down this weekend.