First arnd foremost among rhese advantages is the iact that due to the success of the FIFA Goal project at Pago Pago Park, tootball is the only sport on the island that begins at grassroots level, enabling children and parents to attend matches as part of a family process. No other sport has such an organised structure until high school. Supapo says the idea of family participation ties in strongly with the American Samoan culture itself, where community and spending time together are intrinsic values: “Football is very popular amongst children and parents alike and there is a cultural appeal that families in American Samoa can easily identify with. Sports like baseball and American football don’t have that”
Supapo says the opening of Pago Pago Stadium was by far her most emotional day after two vears at the helm of the ASFA as it was then, and she will bear no malice if one day she finds herself no longer involved in football. For a country that did not have a venue for eleven-a-side football until recently, the positive effect cannot be understated. American Samoa even participated in FIFA’s Fair Play Day, with hundreds of children gathering to acknowledge that football is not just about winning or results – it is about understanding the spirit in which football is played.

Supapo is also a lieutenant in the American Samoan police force and will complete 20 years of service in 2008. Her involvement with football came about because the two sub-stations entered local football competitions as part of a regime designed in the absence of a physical fitness programme. Police officers, their families, wives and relatives would all combine and enter as a club in the local competitions.
She says that in American Samoa, there are only three choices for young, people; a career in the US military, a jo in American Samoa’s tuna industry or trying to make it as an American football player. “There are nearly 200,000 people of American Samoan descent in the US military so this is a very real career option for our people. You neccl to understand that American Samoa exports only one product – tuna – so the other career option us to take a job in the local cannery for 140 US dollars per week. “Hie final option, if you are talented at American football, is to try and gee a college scholarship in mainland USA,” Supapo says.
In 2004, a census in American Samoa revealed that of the territory’s 68,000 inhabitants, only 11,000 were eligible to vote, illustrating the struggle that the FFAS has in selecting a team ro compete within the OFC. With teenagers aspiring to join the military, player retention is an even tougher prospect with most young people joining up with the US milirary shortly after their 18th birthday.
“The military option comes with a range of benefits including a pension, free transportation, medical and education advanrages and so the FFAS faces incredible challenges in building strength in football. Bur football has some advantages that other sports do not,” Supapo admits.

Much has changed since the. XII South Pacific Games. Gone is the American Samoa Football Association (ASFA), its place taken by the Football Federation of American Samoa (FTAS) following a founding congress called by the 27 clubs that make up the country’s football structure.
FIFA and the OFC had worked hard to provide a roadmap towards an elected administrative body in the country after years under a normalisation committee to restore professional administration to football in the country. Former Gommiuee chairperson Pou Supapo was delighted with developments over the past two years and Supapo oversaw a dramatic change in the way football is viewed in the territory. But the challenges were nor just football related; Supapo was seen as an interloper because she was a woman in a culture where there is a clear delineation of responsibility according to gender. Men make all the decisions,
women stay at home. ”People say everything is equal, but that is not the case in practice. At times I felt like walking away, but I wanted to change things for football in American Samoa. We have had political problems here for nearly ten years and it did place a .strain on my family and work,” she explained.