League Runners-Up Vitiaz United Will NOT Take Part in 2021 PNG NSL

2019–20 Papua New Guinea National Soccer League Runners-Up Vitiaz United have confirmed they will not be taking part in the upcoming 2021 competition, mainly due to financial reasons.

The club confirmed via their Facebook page that they would not be taking part in the country’s flagship national competition, but would still be competing at regional level in the Port Moresby area of the country.

The club’s statement in full is as follows:

Dear All,

We would like to formally inform you all that we were not able to submit an EoI for the 2021 season of the NSL. There were a number of factors but the main reason being financial.

It generally cost on average over K500,000 (from our experience) per season. We have to house, feed, train, equip and provide allowances for the boys and this is not including the K90,000 EoI and registration fees. We struggled financially in our first season but it was worth it. We made an impact and went all the way to the grand final. It is all about progressing football with bringing in young and new players into the competition and trying different tactics and techniques so we can develop football.

We will continue playing in our regular competition with the Port Moresby Soccer Association at Bisini. Some of our regular players from Lae will be flown across to support our first season in the Premier Division and look forward to the start of the games sometime in July.

We want to thank everyone that supported us during the NSL season. We are taking a breather this time around but will come back again.

Good luck to all the NSL participants in this season of the NSL and may the best and fairest win.

The statement, from club president Matthew Strach, suggests that the side will return again to national competition, and after such an impressive debut season in the competition, we at Oceania Football Center hope they’ll make this return sooner rather than later.

The club finished the regular season third behind perennial challengers Lae City FC and Hekari United, but were able to triumph over Hekari in the playoffs before losing to Lae City in the Grand Final of last year’s competition.