Football Federation Samoa (“FFS”) was honoured to have one of our Pacific Football icons participating in the XVI Pacific Games.
Known as the most popular and internationally recognised figure in the Pacific region in football, Roy Krishna (“Krishna”) is a Fijian professional footballer of Indian descent who plays as a striker for ATK and is the captain of the Fijian national team.
Born and raised in Labasa Macuata Fiji, Krishna made his first international debut in 2008 for Waitakere United, Auckland City, Wellington Phoenix, and most recently signed with ATK for the Indian Super League.
Krishna was amazed at the pace of development Samoa has achieved since his last visit in 2007 for the South Pacific Games. “I was last here in Apia in 2007 and since then a lot has changed in terms of the infrastructure and the people are welcoming as always which made us enjoy our stay for the Pacific Games this time”, Krishna said.
As an international professional player Krishna extended his acknowledgment of the Executive Committee and Staff at FFS for the excellent services and facilities in which soccer participating teams played on and he believes the future of Samoan football looks promising.
In going forward, Krishna believes that the Oceania region should focus on ‘Grassroots development.’
“I think we need to focus more on the grassroots development and this was evident in the Samoa Women’s Football team playing for Gold.”
The Samoan Women Team consisted of very young promising players who have played football from a very young age and their future will undoubtedly provide positive results for Samoa Women Football in the future.
Although Fiji lost to New Caledonia and New Zealand in group round, Krishna was optimistic with his team winning the Bronze medal match against Papua New Guinea through a penalty shoot-out of 3 – 5 goals.
“I’m just proud of the boys, two weeks camp, we stayed together and when we lost against New Caledonia, few of the head were down but we never gave up hope, thanks to the boys, the medal is for our families and I know all our families back home has been with us this two week, want to give them the victory.”
FFS wishes Krishna well in his future endeavours with the Indian Super League and believes that his attendance has lifted the morale of Samoan players to perform, excel and take football to the next level.
