IN a Fiji Football Association first, a former national team footballer has been appointed player’s scout in Canada.
Ronald Chaudhary, the midfielder who scored praise during his pinnacle days, would discover, evaluate, and recruit promising fresh players for the national teams.
His work leads to investigate a variety of sources to identify promising players, evaluate the skills and entice them for tryouts.
While the rare appointment is deserving, there is not a chink of hope his referral would ever get to drape in the national attire but, I stand to be corrected.
And why? because he is against the grain of possibilities, as Fiji is not too keen on employing outsides.
The rare few that made the team is Vancouver’s Nicholas Prasad and England’s Scott Wara, who debuted in 2018 under beleaguered Fiji coach Christophe Gamel.
And besides, local football is not huge in the community and for the lack of age groups competitions, to the men’s league, there is no future for upcoming footballers.
However, there is a small window of opportunity for elite girls’ footballers and with the luck of the draw, his Vancouver FC Academy may get a glimpse for tryouts.
And with FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, would not that be something as Fiji will need to up its ante and round off the best team possible.
Seattle’s Trina Davis opened the door for footballers of Fiji heritage to play for roots and live out the dream. She holds the record of 9 goals.
She created a stir during the 2018 OFC Women’s Nations Cup qualification tournament in Fiji.
In hindsight, the men’s football development in Vancouver is attributed to the failure of the cohorts of the past, moving to the most recent in power who did not give future generations a reason to get involved in the sport and as such sits the defunct premier football competitions.
While FFA’s leap of faith rests on the keen eye in Canada, they should cue in discussions in the Australia and New Zealand corridor and in the USA.
The ANZAC, the biggest resettlement of Fijian diaspora, boasts training, development, and their standard invariably high, a comparison Canada and the US certainly lag.
It is also a worthy mention that New Zealand clubs with a core of local talent have always created upsets during the Pacific Cup championship.
While global nature of the game of football has lent itself over the years to the inclusion of footballers into and out of different countries,Fijian head coach Flemming Serritslev, at the outset opened the discussion for the overseas players inclusion.
But in a 2020 Radio New Zealand interview he said he did not think any of the Fijian players currently in New Zealand are better than what is on offer in Fiji right now.
Former national and Lautoka football legend Epeli Kosa believes the national coach and the governance needs to broaden their outlook to New Zealand and Australia footballers.
Kosa said the claim that NZ has nothing better to offer is wrong.
“We have better players than he can ever imagine, our teams beat Fiji district teams during the Pacific Cup, and that’s where I rest it, someone needs to run the history by the man who previously coached Papua New Guinea.”
“Papua New Guinea didn’t go far, sadly Fiji isn’t going anywhere unless top-down changes the mindset.”
Kosa said for football to progress in the country, the governing body should have looked to other nations, and include footballers of Fijian heritage for the World Cup qualifiers for a start.
Earlier in the week, Serritslev named his squad for the Oceania Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Footballers who were earmarked missed the final cut, Australian Dan Hall, England’s Peter Ravia and Scott Wara, Ravia was in the training squad and New Zealand’s Mohammed Shuaib Khan.
Canada’s Nicholas Prasad and Zachary “Zach” Verhoven were also considered for tryouts.
Prasad and Wara debuted for Fiji in 2018 against New Caledonia.
Kosa said it is pretty cut and dry that Fiji wants to be represented by local footballers.
“We understand that travel to logistics, club commitment may have factored in, and let’s be honest it has for other nations, all World Cup qualifiers bring their best, from world over Fiji is no exception.”
“Fiji needs to learn a tip or two from world football that local footballers are a mismatch when it comes to real competition, people just don’t seem to care.”
Kosa said the appointment of scout’s world-over is a great idea, but it will not change a thing if the footballers do not make the team, ‘it is time well wasted.’
But for Chaudhary, while Fiji has the ‘clock’ he has the ‘time.’
