FORU announces 4 year schedule for Oceania Cup

The President of FORU, Harry Schuster, has announced a four-year schedule for the Oceania Cup.

The schedule, which was negotiated during the Chief Executive Officers Meeting prior to the FORU Annual General Meeting in Port Moresby is a landmark decision that will ensure that the prestigious event continues to grow and achieve the high performance outcomes it serves for the region’s development outcomes. “The establishment of a four-year schedule for the Oceania Cup is a very exciting outcome for the region.

For the host Union it allows them to plan the event with certainty and puts them in an excellent position to negotiate with local sponsors and governments to host a major international sporting event”, said Schuster. “FORU has worked hard on developing an integrated regional season as this is one of the aims of our new Strategic Plan – and the Oceania cup was an important piece of this puzzle. It has been a difficult task and one that we are now close to achieving thanks mainly to the cooperation of our Member Unions as most of them are required to amend their domestic seasons so that we can achieve an integrated representative calendar” Schuster added.

For FORU it allows us to overcome, as much as possible, many of the logistical hurdles that hosting big sporting events in the region presents. We can now proceed with certainty to negotiate with airlines and accommodation venues to obtain the best possible rates and reduce, as much as possible, the significant overheads that are associated with running the Oceania Cup.

The Oceania Cup is one of two International Tournaments hosted annually in the region and is contested by FORU’s Development Unions – Cook Islands, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu. FORU’s Associate Members – American Samoa, New Caledonia and Wallis & Futuna also compete. The competition is broken up into East and West divisions with the final being between the winners of each Division.

2008 Oceania Cup Oceania Cup East, Cook Islands, 16-23 August 2008 Oceania Cup West, New Caledonia, 16-23 August 2008 Oceania Cup Final, Hosted by winner Oceania Cup West, 20 August

2009 Oceania Cup Oceania Cup West, Solomon Islands, June 2009 Oceania Cup East, Niue, June 2009 Oceania Cup Final, Hosted by winner Oceania Cup East, July 2009   2010 Oceania Cup Oceania cup west, Papua New Guinea, June

2010 Oceania Cup East, Tahiti, June 2010 Oceania Cup Final, Hosted by winner Oceania Cup West, July 2010   2011 Oceania Cup Oceania Cup West, Vanuatu, June 2011 Oceania Cup East, Cook Islands, June

2011 Oceania Cup Final, Hosted by Winner Oceania Cup East, July 2011