By CHARLIE DUMAVI
A TOTAL of 12 teams are vying for a spot in the 2023 Papua New Guinea Football Association’s (PNGFA) premier soccer league (PSL) 2023 competition.
With the rebranding of PNGFA’s semi-professional national soccer league (NSL) to PSL, they are now screening the expressions of interest (EoIs) submitted by the teams that wish to take part in the competition.
PNGFA Competition Manager Ahmjad Tekwie confirmed that his office received 12 EoI as of Wednesday May 3.
“12 teams have indicated their interests via submission of EoI,” he said.
“There are few more to go that’s why we extended the deadline to this week, Saturday (yesterday).
“Not all of them will make the cut.
“We are looking at the format of eight teams.
“That means we’ll have four games per weekend with home and away format.”
He said the football clubs include United Highlands, Port Moresby Strikers, Gulf Komara, Morobe Wawens, Lae City, Bougainville, Hekari United, Kalibobo United and Tusbab Stallions.
The rebranded PSL competition season 2023 will kick off on May 13.
This will put to rest the NSL competition with Lae City FC’s name engraved to the trophy as the team who won the last edition of NSL.
The PSL competition will be played in Lae, Port Moresby and Madang and Bougainville (yet to be confirmed) .
Moreover, the Women’s Conference Soccer League (WCSL), will also start on May 13, while the national Youth Soccer League (YSL) will commence the day after.
Tekwie further said that PNGFA is awaiting paper work to be done before they can announce the naming rights sponsor for the competitions.
