June 19, 2014; Erie PA.
Today, Bhutanese sports and youth leaders and representatives from all most all the states of the United States got together in Erie Pennsylvania for Fourth Inter States Bhutanese National Soccer Tournament 2014 hosted by Bhutanese-American youths of Erie, PA. The independent Bhutanese youths’ voluntary groups in the United States are organizing the Inter States Annual Soccer events including other sports items and cultural programs, and the youth sports conferences since 2011 in different states which was initiated from Atlanta Georgia. In the series of annual national soccer event hosting history, California was second and Texas was third after first tournament hosted by the state of Georgia. At this time The Erie Pennsylvania is hosting the “Fourth Inter States Bhutanese Annual Soccer Tournament 2014”, on June 20-23, 2014.
According to the state event host organizers, 40 Bhutanese American Soccer teams from about 23 different states are participating in the grand national sport tournament in Erie Pennsylvania. The Bhutanese national soccer tournament 2014 is going to be held in Family First Sports Park at 8155 Oliver Road, Erie, PA. According to Ganga Gurung and Raj Rai, organizing committee coordinators, all most everything is ready for hosting the grand national event. One of the local Bhutanese volunteer estimated about 600 youths were served hospitable food on the first day itself.
On the first day of the grand event as previous year, a conference was held in the East High School of Erie, 1001 Atkins Street, Erie PA. On the conference, K T White, a social worker and former employee of international institute of Erie, and a volunteer for the event said that the Bhutanese American Soccer Organizing Committee is the best organization among the refugee communities in the United States. All the teams present on the meeting submitted their team registration, liabilities documents and players name check in. The organizing committee shared the tournament information to the players and the team managers. The tournament T-shirts were distributed to the participating team managers.
The sport conference was categorized into two sessions – first to welcome all the participating teams and final check in of complete team registration, and second session was focused on establishment of the Bhutanese American Sport Organization. In the second session, Devi Subedi introduced and forwarded the concept of establishing the national umbrella organization for the promotion, development, and institutionalizations of the Bhutanese American Sports, which was continuously proposed and practiced by the annual Bhutanese Soccer Tournament organizers since 2011. Sukkah Subba from Tennessee explained about the need of the organization, and the interim coordinator of the Ad hoc committee of interim Inter States Sport board, proposed the concept to the participating team leaders. An hour discussion was done on the name and objectives of the newly established sport organization. This is a great progress in our Bhutanese community that our youths are getting professionalized establishing their own umbrella national organization on sports. The grand Bhutanese Soccer Tournament starts on June 20, 2014.
