There is a bright future for the footballers of Lokia community says Nakaikogo Sanatan Primary School teacher and Fiji FA Development Centre co-ordinator, Kamal Prasad.

Deo applauded Fiji Football Association for taking the initiative to open a development center at their school.

“First of all I would like to thank Fiji FA for choosing our school as a football development center which has helped us very much as far as our football is concern,” Prasad said.

Prasad said they had achieved a lot after the development centre was open last year.

“We have been the champions of the Rewa Inter-Primary School competition in both grades under 12 and under 14 since the centre was opened and we made it back to back this year.”

He said the interest in the students had been growing every week.

“If you look at it the interest from the children is growing every week and they have been improving a lot in terms of playing,” Prasad said.

Prasad said the support from the school management, teachers and parents was huge.

“All this is happening because of the support from the school management, teachers especially the head teacher and the parents and they encourage the student to take part in the development programme.”

Prasad believes there was lot of potential players in their centre.

“We have a large community here and we have about five clubs from here taking part in Rewa and Tailevu Naitasiri Local League competition and these players will be part of them after years.”

“They can also play for the district and who knows they may be part of the national team.”

He said some player were already part of the youth teams.

“This is a feeder programme for the community and I am sure these players will be a huge asset for the clubs here as they are developed from the grassroots.

Prasad said Fiji FA had taken the right pathway in their mission 2026.

“I think Fiji FA has done best thing in setting up development centres and developing players from grassroots and I am sure come 2026 we will see our national team at the FIFA World Cup.”

The students he said also were holistically developed with the programme.

‘These are the primary school children and we teachers focus on their studies to get the results but it is also important to get the children out in the field and give them some fun activities so that they can relax their mind and mind gets fresh and doing this we are developing them holistically.”

He said they would continue with the development program set up by Fiji FA and next year they would bring back the glory again to the school.

The Nakaikogo Sanatan Primary School is one of the many development centre established by Fiji FA in the grassroots development of football in the country.