The Samoa Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee (S.A.S.N.O.C) has re-elected Fepulea’i Patrick Fepulea’i as President for the next four years. 

The election was made during the Association’s Annual General Meeting on Thursday night. A special meeting will be called later to elect a Vice President and Treasurer as there were no nominations for the positions.

But Fepulea’i told the Weekend Observer he is happy to have retained the faith of the S.A.S.N.O.C. membership to lead the organisation. 

“I feel pleased to have been reappointed to lead this organization for the next four years,” he said.

“I think there is still plenty of work to be done and we’ve got some new board members on board too. So hopefully we can all work together and help develop sports here in the next four years.”

The new board members include the President of the Samoa Weightlifting Federation, Tuaopepe Asiata Wallwork and four women. 

They are the General Secretary of Swimming, Kerriemoana Punivalu, General Manager of Samoa International Cricket, Sala Stella Siale – Vaea Tangitau, the C.E.O. of Netball Samoa, Rosemary Esera, Chairman of the Samoa Women in Sports Commission, Nynette Sass and the Secretary-General Pauga Talalelei Pauga - President of the Samoa Basketball Association.

Looking back, Fepulea’i said a lot of the focus during the four years was on capacity building for administrators.

 “But this year as you see there has been a lot of developments in sports from the grassroots level.

“So people see boxing as well as rugby there’s a big drive in schools and we see cricket and even volleyball has been introduced in schools. Even weightlifting there’s a lot of young lifters now doing very well and that’s a good for going forward.

“So that’s the future anyway. We need to keep that development going.”

Asked about some of the challenges from his first term, Fepulea’i said there are many but financial problems is the main one.

 “The main challenge that we had faced in the last four years is that we weren’t financially supported.

So I think in the four years we managed to sort out our accounts and stuff like that [and] how to be responsible for funds that is coming in and quick reports that we need to send to not only here in the government but also for the International Olympic Committee that also supplies most of the money for the different programmes we have.

“So I think now we are a bit more responsible in that regard so hopefully we don’t have to worry too much about that but concentrate on improving sports in general here.”

And what can expect in the future?

“There are two main sports happening this year that we are preparing for,” he said.

‘The first one is the Youth Commonwealth Games in July to be held in the Bahamas which we have our youth sevens team qualified for that.

“We have boxing as well which is really good because it goes side by side with the boxing development that is going on right now and then we have the Mini Games happening in Vanuatu in December.

“And many other tournaments for different sports but the main two that S.A.S.N.O.C is preparing for are the Mini Games and the Commonwealth Youth Games.”