The joy of the sport called Football is the drive behind Football Federation Samoa’s (FFS) kicking off their whole-of-country field learning of the sport.

They have reached dozens of church bodies already with the goal of preaching the good message of the sport as well as identifying and growing talents at the young grass-roots level in communities. This month also marks the start of their yearlong schedule to develop the code further. 

The FFS management is elated with their success thus far with their FIFA and OFC-certified referees and football scholarship awards handed out to local players. 

They have also had programs with schools, churches, local communities, and national competitions which is a culmination of the work done in the last decade by the FFS. One of the programs that made this possible is the "Just Play" initiative rolled out to schools and communities.

This multi-country sport development program designed by the Oceania Football Confederation (O.F.C.) targets children and adolescents aged between 6–18 years. The support from this goes towards the growth of the child through football. 

What they hope to achieve is that children and adolescents are empowered to become advocates for change, supporting the development of positive behavior practices, and promoting individual resilience, shared knowledge, and experiences among their communities.

This will educate the participating schools and their student population to stay healthy and live a healthy lifestyle. All the people involved in the program strive to create a safe environment for the children to play football and have fun.

Program Coordinator, Pelenatete Taei leads the teams who have been deployed into communities and classrooms ensuring that all are presented with the opportunity of learning about football.

“Last week we had a course delivered from 12 to 14 of April and we had participants from churches, village communities, and primary schools," she said. "We delivered the program in two parts based on theory and practical before carrying out the assessment."

Ms. Taei and her teams have delivered their Just Play programs to primary schools and supplied them with all the resources they need to start.

The association supplies equipment to assist participants in their own journey to advance the sport in their communities with the ultimate aim of contributing to having more talented footballers come out of Samoa.