Samaposha Football Tourney from July 6 to 8

Anuradha ABEYSEKERA

The All Island Under-13 Inter School Samaposha Football Championship will see its final stage working off at the Mac Haizer Stadium in Trincomalee from July 6 to 8 with 21 boys and 21 girls teams who performed well in the inertial stage vying for honours. This was reveald during a press briefing held at the Football House recently.

Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) and School's Football Federation (SLSFF) with the sponsorship of Samaposha who stepped forward to support the event for the fourth consecutive year will conduct the tournament.

The 21 teams in both boys and girls category will compete in four groups (A,B, C, D) and winners and runner ups will proceed to the next level.

Altogether 438 boys and 117 girls teams took part in the first round. The tournament has become a major annual activity of the school football fraternity since its inauguration in 2009.

FFSL Deputy CEO Arunade Silva said that they have been working as a family with the sponsors and Schools’ Federation to host the event on a grand scale with the aim to popularize the game through out the country.

Plenty Foods Director/CEO Shammi Karunaratne said that their brand Samaposh is proud to support this worthy cause of developing Sri Lanka's grass rout level football. “The youngsters who participated in the first tournament are now have become blooming talents of the country and we believe this age category is the most important level of a player's development,” said Karunarathne.

He assured their continous support for the game and said that they hope Sri Lanka will soon become one of the best soccer playing countries in the South East Asia.

The tournament has chosen rural venues for its final round through out the history with the prime objective of bringing the sport to the far region. Except for the inaugural tournament all two other editions were worked off in Badulla – 2010 and Matara -2011 districts.