PORT MORESBY – The world soccer body, FIFA, has opened a disciplinary case against the Papua New Guinea Football Association whose women’s team failed to travel to New Zealand for the Olympic qualifying playoff scheduled on Tuesday.

The incident is embarrassing for FIFA vice-president David Chung, who leads the Papua New Guinea Football Association and the Oceania Confederation, the Associated Press news service reported from Zurich.

Sports Minister Justin Tkatchenko said it was disappointing to see the women’s team miss out on the second leg of the Oceania Football Confederation’s Olympic qualifying match.

Tkatchenko, said the whole situation is unacceptable.

“PNGFA totally stuffed it up. They didn’t get their act together and they have let down our girls big time. I can’t see why they wouldn’t have had it done - they knew they were travelling to New Zealand and to travel to New Zealand and Australia you need to have a visa.”

Tkatchenko says whoever is responsible for not arranging the visas should lose their job

Papua New Guinea lost 7-1 in the first leg in Lae last Saturday.

New Zealand media reported that visa issues to blame for the away team not travelling for the return match in Auckland.

FIFA did not give a reason on Monday when confirming in a statement that the playoff second leg hd been cancelled.

New Zealand now advances to represent Oceania at the 12-team Rio de Janeiro Olympics tournament in August, while Papua New Guinea faces being fined and suspended from future FIFA competitions.

Port Moresby is due to host the Women’s Under-20 World Cup for FIFA this year from November 13 to December 3.

As hosts the PNG team automatically qualifies to play in that tournament.

PNGFA technical director Taku Niebo said most of the players’ visas were not processed in time for them to travel to New Zealand on Monday.

Niebo said the visa applications were launched last week Monday, five days prior to travel but were not approved in time.

“Five girls had to get new for the first time passports and this also delayed the process as we wanted to launch all visa applications together. Unfortunately the visa was not ready in time for the team to travel,” he said.

The Post-Courier reported that the PNG players were left in tears at Port Moresby’s Jackson’s International Airport on Sunday.

Disappointment has been expressed on the Courier-Post’s Facebook page.

Melkisedek John wrote: “These girls deserved to go and play in NZ somehow they were denied that opportunity.

“Some are small town or village girls who would have had a once in lifetime opportunity to travel overseas and will probably never have another chance or opportunity to travel overseas again .

“Good luck to the officials that failed them.”

However, Arnold Mundua had a more cynical viewpoint:
“If they cannot win on home soil with a 6 goals margin against them, its going to double down under!”

- Post-Courier/PNC