SAFF to organise more tournaments

The South Asian Football Federation was formed in 1997 with six founding members (Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) while Bhutan in 2000 and Afghanistan in 2005 joined later. Now SAFF is eight nations strong and the organisation last year finally decided to expand its footballing activities from just organising the South Asian Football Federation Championships for Men.

The first seminar for South Asian Football Federation Member Associations was held last week in New Delhi and there it was decided to launch three new tournaments this year - the SAFF Club Championships, an Under-16 Youth Tournament for Boys, an Under-13 Football Festival for Boys - following the launch of the SAFF Women's Cup last year.

The inaugural SAFF Club Championship would be hosted by Bangladesh from September 1 to 15. Two club each from the host country Bangladesh and India plus one club each from the other six nations would take part in the biannual event. The exact format would be decided in consultation with the organising Bangladesh Football Federation.

The first ever SAFF Under-16 Championships would be hosted by Nepal in July/August 2011. So far hosts Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have confirmed their participation, while replies from Afghanistan, Maldives and Bhutan are still awaited.

The AIFF also proposed to organise an Under-13 Football Festival for Boys, which was accepted by the other SAFF members. When and where the Under-13 festival will be held has still to be finalised though India looks the most likely host.

The upcoming SAFF Cup will be hosted by defending champions India from December 1 to 15. And from now on the SAFF Championships would be hosted every alternate year during the first half of December. Finally the SAFF Cup has a fixed slot in the calendar.

Last year the inaugural SAFF Women's Cup was successfully hosted by Bangladesh. The next edition would be held in 2012 with Sri Lanka volunteering to host the tournament if no other nation comes forward to organise it.