MUPC Under-15 Zonal Round kicks-off today

The seventh edition of the Indian-leg of the Manchester United Premier Cup Under-15 tournament of the global youth football tournament has been ongoing with the state qualifiers with the Zonal qualifiers kicking-off in Jamshedpur today. The tournament hosted jointly by the All India Football Federation and Nike India is being held across the country.

The qualifiers for the North, Northeast and East are being held on two grounds within the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur with Tata Steel along with the Jharkhand Football Association organising the tournament.

Under-15 teams from Assam, Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Orissa, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal will face each other in group and knockout matches until May 5 with the best teams making it to the national finals in Goa.

The qualifiers for the South and West Zone will be played from May 7 at the Sesa Football Academy grounds in Goa.

This season there has been some controversy around the format of the Indian-leg of the Manchester United Premier Cup Under-15 tournament with the AIFF allowing only one entry per state and then in Maharashtra a draw of lots was carried out to decide the participant in the zonal finals, while in other states a tournament was played to decide who would represent that specific state.

Now the tournament is on its way with the Zonal phase with the best under-15 teams set to face each other in Goa from May 10 for a place in the Southeast Asia finals to be played in Indonesia in late-May 2012.