The newly elected president of the Papua New Guinea Football Association says the sport is united once again after close to two years of infighting and division.
John Kapi Natto defeated acting president John Wesley Gonjuan by ten votes to eight at the PNGFA Congress in Port Moresby on Saturday.
New PNG Football Association John Kapi Natto and Vice President John Wesley Gonjuan. Photo: PNG Football Association
Mr Kapi Natto launched a breakaway football body, Football Federation PNG, in February last year after seven local associations were suspended by the PNG Football Association in 2016.
However in July he agreed to end the rival organisation following a request from world governing body FIFA.
The suspensions have since been lifted and all 18 PNGFA member associations were entitled to vote at the congress, following a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Mr Kapi Natto, Mr Gonjuan and FIFA.
John Kapi Natto said governance and compliance are important issues but the PNGFA's previous approach with member associations was too heavy-handed.
"PNGFA is saying that the member associations have not met the compliance - that's why the suspensions came up - and my strongest push with that is that compliance does not just come overnight," he said.
"You can not just tell the member associations that you have a problem with compliance or business and you need to resolve it.
"No, it takes a period of time so that our PNGFA in the secretary office, the technical areas, should go down and work with those associations so that we check their compliances, their governance, that they're running the competitions, they've got all these senior grades, they've got the youth - they've got all these things," Mr Kapi Natto said.
"Right now if you ask compliance to all the 18 members I'd say only two out of 18 have fully met the complience so those are issues that I'm now trying to sit down with the General Secretary, Dimirit Mileng, and say that we have a priority to strengthen our member associations."
John Kapi Natto launched a breakaway football body, Football Federation PNG in 2017. Photo: Facebook
John Kapi Natto said it had been a tough couple of years, with member associations and the playing populations split across Papua New Guinea, a struggling National Soccer League and a raft of sponsors pulling their support.
He said the his administration must now work hard to regain the faith and trust of the Papua New Guinea football community.
"Now that we've come forward we've all united now and Mr Gonjuan, who was acting president, who was in charge for the last 18 months, did quite a good job in holding the fort and through...coming together I think we're both now in force to take football forward," he said.
"Basically, the priority now is to build confidence back to our stakeholders, our member associations.
"The main issue that took place in 2016 was the governance and compliances. I have work now which in 2019 is to restore the governance and compliances to all member associations.
"Once those governance (arrangements) are in place and they're happy then I think we don't have a problem at the top and that's where they need leadership now to champion their governance and compliances."
Attendees at the PNGFA Congress including new president John Kapi Natto (Front 3L) and vice president John Wesley Gonjuan (Front 3R) Photo: PNG Football Association