Football Australia is hosting the four-team invitational tournament featuring three of Oceania’s highly ranked wom­en’s national teams in the 2022 Pa­cific Women’s Four Nations Tour­nament in Canberra.

The tournament kicks off today, rounding off on November 13.

Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solo­mon Islands join the CommBank Young Matildas (Under-20) for a round-robin tournament featuring the top three finishers at the 2022 Oceania Football Confederation’s Women’s Nations Cup. The four teams are in a series of double-headers over the first three days at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra and Queanbeyan’s Seiffert Oval.

Football Australia chief executive officer, James Johnson said: “We are delighted to welcome the senior national teams of our Pacific neigh­bours Fiji, PNG and Solomon Is­lands for the first Asia-Pacific cross-confederation tournament activity since the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“This is an initiative through our Legacy ’23 International Engage­ment pillar, in addition to provid­ing the CommBank Young Matildas valuable match preparation ahead of their bid to qualify for AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup in Uzbekistan 2024,” he said.

“The Four Nations tournament will provide female footballers from the visiting Pacific nations with ac­cess to quality matches, high-perfor­mance facilities and expertise, in­cluding capacity-building sessions with Football Australia technical and subject-matter experts.

“With our two confederations, the OFC and the AFC, hosting the his­toric FIFA Women’s World Cup Aus­tralia and New Zealand 2023, this tournament underscores FA’s ongo­ing commitment to genuine, produc­tive engagement as we work to be a centre of excellence for women’s football and a supporting partner in the growth of women’s football in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Johnson thanked the Austral­ian Government and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs for their collaboration on this tourna­ment and look forward to working towards more projects in this space. FA is living its vision to ensure leg­acy from next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup™ and this impact is felt throughout PNG remains in conten­tion to qualify for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 via next February’s inter-Confederation play-off.

The 2022 Pacific Women’s Four Na­tions tournament follows up the suc­cessful 2019 Pacific Tour, which saw the CommBank Junior Matildas travel to Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Tonga for a series of matches.

DRAWS:

Today:

– 11am: Papua New Guinea v Fiji

– 6pm: CommBank Young Matildas v Solomon Islands

Friday:

– 11am: Papua New Guinea v Solomon Islands

– 6pm: CommBank Young Matildas v Fiji

Sunday:

– 11am: Solomon Islands v Fiji

– 5pm: CommBank Young Matildas v Papua New Guinea

Source-Football Australia

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