£l000 DONATION COULD HELP SCHOOL SOCCER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30454, 30 May 1964, Page 11

£l000 DONATION COULD HELP SCHOOL SOCCER

MANY people in soccer are beginning to ask what the New Zealand Football Association intends doing with this season’s £lOOO donation from the Rothmans tournament. It is a large sum of money to be left idle when so much needs to be done. Last season it was eaten up, with little reward for the sponsors or the code, in a national competition between the four top clubs in the major centres. The prize money was used to pay expenses and the remainder was divided between the four clubs, the major portion going to the winner, but the competition proved a financial burden to the N.Z.F.A., and the proposed two-leg final was reduced to one match, to cut its losses. It was found that the Rothmans tournament had none of the glamour and public support associated

with the nation-wide Chatham Cup, and the tournament will not be repeated this season. But the £lOOO is lying in the kitty and no decision has yet been announced as to how it should be used. Whatever is decided, it must not be frittered away on pet schemes that serve no national purpose. Apparently there is a thought that the money should be divided up among the provincial associations to be used on improving ground facilities and coaching programmes. Some want the N.Z.F.A. to keep it stacked away for the future.

Others have asked for it to be used to keep together the successful under 15 team which has just returned from a tour of Australia. It might almost appear that there are so many uses to which the £lOOO can be put that a decision will be put off for want of one that all can agree to. But if there is something needed above all else in planning for New Zealand’s soccer future it is that the schools be given every possible encouragement and financial help to improve coaching standards. This might be the best use for the money.