Mazey: Safety Bubble Draws Sports Events
Fiji could be hosting some of the world’s biggest sporting tournaments in the near future.
Fiji National Sports Commission executive chairman Peter Mazey confirmed this to SUNsports yesterday indicating that talks are ongoing with these countries.
“What we’re saying is that there is a lot of interest in the Pacific after it was seen as a bubble of safety and there are number of countries in the Pacific that are COVID-19 free,” Mazey said.
“At the moment there’s conferences happening online in Fiji between Pacific Island countries. They are starting to talk about the Pacific Island bubble and part of that bubble is very much going to be sports. “Worldwide sports is now looking at other alternatives and Fiji has now been contacted by huge international sporting bodies in America to look at moving their whole tournament here to the Pacific where it is safe to conduct.”
Mazey said for countries like Fiji where we had controlled the COVID-19 pandemic has been recognised around the world.
‘We are getting calls and we are certainly working with Tourism Fiji, Investment Fiji and other relevant organisations. ‘We’ve had phone calls from New Zealand and North America to see the possibility of maybe sending teams here for competitions or to come over for training,” he said. Meanwhile, Mazey said there are plans of setting up camps for the Fijian 7s rugby team who are the defending Olympic champions. This is to prepare them for next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.
“There is also possibility that one or two countries would love to come and base their training camps here.
“At the moment they can’t do it because of the quarantine problems but we are certainly looking into it,” he said.
“I believe what the teams from these countries want is to play with our local teams.”