Luganville prepares for Oceania Champions League

Luganville town on the Island of Santo in Vanuatu has started its preparations to host Group B of the 2020 OFC Champions League next month.

Local favourites and 2019 Vanuatu champions Malampa Revivors will be joined by Fiji’s Lautoka FC, Lae City FC from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands runners-up between 15 and 21 February at Luganville’s Soccer City Stadium to compete for two places up for grabs in the knock-out stages of the competition.

In a meeting last week in Luganville, Vanuatu Football Federation and Luganville based organisations have formalized a local organizing team that will deal with all the logistics and other ground work for the matches.

The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is comprised of VFF, Vanuatu Police Force, Luganville Football Association, Malampa Revivors FC, Northern Provincial Hospital (government), Pro-Medical, Luganville Municipality and Sanma Provincial Government.

The General Secretary of VFF Albert Manaroto who is also the LOC chairman was in Santo last week to establish the team and ensure preparations have started towards a smooth competition.

VFF Competition Manager who is also the Games Coordinator Bong Shem is in Santo this week to followup on the work and ensure processes and activities involving people, machines, tools, materials are organised to bring the infrastructure up to standard.

The second biggest town in the archipelago where Malampa Revivors FC is based was selected to host Groupl B games of the competition because they never hosted any champions league games in the past and Malampa as 2019 Vanuatu champions  were eligible to host.