From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Navua close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ba is saying, and nobody at Navua is enjoying the guessing.
Market7 Sep 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Navua they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Navua
Jared Rongosulia was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Navua, another week without a signature from Zainal Ali.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Shofwaan Ali gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Shofwaan Ali is on it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Zainal Ali knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zainal Ali trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market7 Sep 2026
4 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Navua money.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Aug 2026
Navua bow out of the cup
Ba go through and Navua go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Navua
Ali Mekawir and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Aporosa Tuyaga left the room before anybody could ask which.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Ba have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Tailevu Naitasiri: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Ali Mekawir has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Navua will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Sunny Deol
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Aug 2026
Navua march on in the cup
Labasa are out and Navua go through, 4‑2 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Ali Mekawir, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Rinish keeps Navua in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market24 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Navua have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Shofwaan Ali, 19, steals the show — 8.14
Marked 8.14 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Navua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
Only the photograph left for Zainal Ali
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zainal Ali will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Navua the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Zainal Ali has agreed to leave Navua for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Navua
Ali Mekawir was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Suva come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Navua did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ali Mekawir in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market17 Aug 2026
Suva are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Navua will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ali Mekawir linked with a move away
The name of Ali Mekawir keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Navua say nothing, which says plenty.
Market17 Aug 2026
Navua have made Vineet Chand available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Navua
Ali Mekawir and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Viliame Kalounaiwai is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marlon Raju has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Filipe Baravilala commits to Navua for another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Navua
Ali Mekawir and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Ba: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Tailevu Naitasiri have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Vineet Chand has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Navua.