National players must visit Rural football

The National Striker, Etienne Mermer was invited to the closing of Lamap Football Festival on Malekula last Friday 18^th of December, 2009. Mr. Mermer went down after an invitation from the tournament sponsor, Mr Abong Marcelin who is the director of Cultural Centre in Vanuatu. Mr Marcelin told Vanuafoot that the main idea behind this tournament was to help fight against cigarette, Alcohol, Kava and also teenage pregnancy during this Christmas holiday.

" Vanuatu's life style is changing fast and we must always help to educate our young people to stay away from all these dangerous drugs and I want to use Football, the popular sports in our country to fight against all this dangerous drugs." Said Mr Marcelin. "I thank VFF for letting our national striker Etienne Mermer to come down to our province and his province to help the young people. His coming means a lot to us because the young people there can have the great opportunity to meet the striker who once played in Australia and now the current Tafea striker and also the Soccer Academy manager, " Marcelin said.

The One week Tournament started on the 11^th of this month and ended on the 18^th. Altogether there were 20 teams who participated in this tournament. Most teams came from the island where this tournament was held and two from Ambrym.

In response, Etienne told Vanuafoot that it is about time, all national players must travel to all the provinces to spread the good news of football and fight against the deadly drugs that are really affecting the life of young people today which is very sad to see. "The example of Lamap tournament is a very good one and its good for all provinces to do the same." We must continue to play hard and fight hard to help our young people to stay away from Kava, Alcohol, Cigarette so that one day they can represent ort country well in football." added Mr. Mermer.

The Happy Sponsor Mr Marcelin confirmed with Vanuafoot after he saw the success of this year's tournament that next year's tournament will be at the same venue but will be a bigger one than this year. "I am planning to invite our national players to next year's tournament to be the main highlight of the tournament" saids Mr. Marcelin.