The championship will feature 12 teams, including provincial squads and teams from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata. PHOTO: PFF/FILE
KARACHI: The National U16 Championship will commence today in Abbottabad, as the four-member Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) committee assessed the players’ fitness and age in the opening ceremony of the tournament yesterday.
The championship will feature 12 teams, including provincial squads and teams from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata, along with four youth city squads from Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar. The 12 teams will compete in four groups and the top two from each pool will progress to the quarter-finals.
According to a PFF official, the key factor in holding the championship properly was to determine the correct ages of the players and discouraging cheating at the junior level.
“It was imperative that all the players were under the age of 16 as using older players is cheating,” PFF committee member Nasir Ismail told The Express Tribune. “We need to be fair to these young players.” The opener will be played between Fata and Balochistan today.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2013.
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