KFA to introduce new age group tournaments soon

Kochi: Kerala Football Association (KFA) will begin new age group tournaments at the district-level with an aim to increase competition among junior footballers. The tournaments will be played initially in various age categories in seven districts and will see participation of players between the age 13 and 21. The district-level age group tournament will have five teams, who will square off in a home-and-away format in three rounds. In the second stage, KFA plans to expand the project to the remaining seven districts.“A total of 2,100 matches are expected to be held in these age groups in addition to the 700 matches which are being held as part of the U-13, U-15 and U-17 leagues,” said Navas Meeran shortly after assuming office as new president of KFA on Sunday. “As the competition increases, the number of evolved players in the state will also increase in number. At present, the players between the age categories of U-13 to U-21 have only the inter-district championships in which a team plays a maximum of four games. Apart from these, there are a couple of junior tournaments which are held in a knock-out format. These tournaments are not enough to help the player to evolve as a professional,” added Navas.KFA general secretary P Anilkumar said that there are no additional expenses involved in organizing these new tournaments. “In Europe such tournaments are common. KFA intends to provide opportunities for the academies to get some game time. They can conduct the matches on their own training grounds and the association will provide the equipment and officials,” said Anilkumar.KFA plans to build eight new stadiums KFA is also planning to construct eight stadiums with a seating capacity of 15,000 to 20,000 in the state. “We will be submitting a project to the state government regarding this. If the government is willing to fund the project, we will be more than happy and if not, we have some private parties willing to sponsor the project. The new stadiums will be constructed in a PPT model,” said Meeran.Newly elected KFA officials: president: Navas Meeran; vice-president: P Paulose, Davies Mooken, M Sivakumaran, Mohamed Saleem M, P Haridas, Pavithran VP; joint secy: Shaji PK, K A Vijayakumar; treasurer: Reginold Varghese; representative to KSSC: Achu S; representative to Kerala Olympic Association: Anil Kumar P, PF Davis; executive-committee: Remegi Oscar, Shameem Backer CK, P G George, Vinoj K George, Prof P Ashraf, T P Abdulsalam, PC Johnson, Raveendran G, Joy Paulose, Priyesh Kumar P, Jose Jacob, K Gangadharan, AK Shereif