Addu Football History
Addu City has been a key player in Maldives football for decades. From times of British Royal Air Force (RAF) stay in Gan Island, during WWI and WWII, many Adduans were introduced the beautiful game of football. Clubs from Addu competed in the national level (first divisions) in capital male’ and made unprecedented accomplishments in the Maldives football history by a non-male’ registered clubs. And it has huge influence in the ownership and management compositions of clubs and Football Association of Maldives (FAM) today. For instance Marzooq (Marey) and Shaweedh are second to none in the Maldives football arena.
Addu players have also been contributing to the success of many clubs and national football team today. Most remarkably, all time addu favourite, Mr. Shamweel Gasim, aka Bonda, have had huge impact on the performance and morale of national team during the last 10 years. His balanced dribbling, control, pace and goal scoring passion have been truly phenomenal. Other recent famous addu players include, the best and most reliable midfielder Mr. Arif (Baka), Mr. Ahmed Saeed (Ammaty) Shaati, Naatto.
About Minivan Cup
Minivan Cup, promoting football and spirit of the beautiful game through Futsal since 2009, has again reverberated the golden age of addu football. Since the inception of Minivan Cup in 2009, addu people, particularly from Hulhudhoo (a largely deserted island during 1990s), flock to Hulhudhoo to take part in this fun-filled footballing extravaganza, which lasts for a month. Every year, the tournament is held towards the celebration of Independence Day, the 26th July.
Background
Renowned across Addu, Hulhudhoo and its people are a very sporting and entertainment oriented people. Throughout history, Hulhudhoo remained one of the best footballing islands in Addu. During 1980-1995, hulhudhoo was the dominant footballing island in addu and across Maldives, apart from first division clubs in Male’. However, this fact remained in history, and the new generation of Hulhudhooans put lot of efforts to reverberate the golden age and a club by the name Hulhudhoo Sports Club was formed in 2002. Accordinly, until 2008, HSC was conducting annual sporting and entertainment festival “HSC FESTIVAL” targeting entire addu city since 2002.
Minivan Cup was introduced by Mr. Ibrahim Sameeu (Maray) and Mr. Mohamed Saeed (Saittey) at a time when football, the only major game and entertainment activity where people from all backgrounds and ages had been taking part, had totally diminished towards the end of 2008 in Hulhudhoo, Addu City. And from 2009 onwards, Minivan Cup is successfully conducted in Hulhudhoo.
Tournament
Minivan Cup is based on the fast-track and skill-oriented footballing cuisine “futsal”. Futsal is growing rapidly ever since the introduction of the tournament in the island back in 2009. Initially, teams belonging to Hulhudhoo and Meedhoo were taking part in the tournament, however with the systematic and gradual improvements of successfully accomplishing the tournament every year, more and more teams showed their interest to join. Remarkably, in our 2016’s event a total of 12 teams took part.
Albeit, the number is again reduced to 10 teams, making the tournament fierce and more competitive, especially when other islands of addu are bringing their best teams to this tournament. Apart from teams representing islands of Addu, teams from resorts, government organizations and institutions also pay a special interest. Essentially, this year, a team from Baros Island Resort, Herathera Island Resort, Maldives Police Service, Maldives National Defense Force and Fenaka Corporations Limited are taking part in this tournament.
Every year, national level football players and specially prominent futsal players from different parts of the country travel to Hulhudhoo with various teams. Noticably, Rona, Rippe, Only, Ammadey, etc are top national futsal players who has been playing in this tournament. Their skills and on-field decipline give our young players morale boost to be like one of them or better. Accordingly, we have been seeing a rise in number of young Hulhudhoo players emerging and remarkably Faththey is second to none.
Minivan Cup is hosted in the month of July every year and the closure of the tournament is always on July 26th, our independence day. Every year we see people from different corners of Maldives come to Hulhudhoo to take part in this fun-filled event. Minivan Cup is hosted in Hulhudhoo Futsal Ground and during the tournament, Maldives Police Service provides special security coverage of the tournament and neighborhoods. Through participation and involvement of community, government agencies and NGOs we ensure the tournament, sponsors, management, teams, players and spectators get the most benefit out the event.
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