Subroto Cup, the oldest national school football tournament in India, will be held for the first time outside the National Capital Region (NCR), in Bengaluru alongside Delhi and Gurugram with an aim to spread the reach of the iconic tournament throughout the country. The 62nd edition of the tourney starts September 19 and will run till October 23. While the U-14 Sub-Junior Boys competition will be hosted in Bengaluru, the U-17 Junior Boys and Girls tournaments will be held in Delhi/NCR.
“The 62nd Subroto Cup will indeed be historic given that it will be played in Bengaluru, in the South of India, for the very first time. It has been our longstanding desire to spread the reach of this iconic tournament to more corners of the country and the hosting of the main Sub Junior Boys tournament in Bengaluru this year is a first step in that direction,” said Air Marshal R.K. Anand VSM, Air Officer-in-Charge Administration & Vice Chairman SMSES, addressing the media during the curtain raiser event for the tournament in Delhi on Tuesday.
A total of 109 teams will participate across the three categories from 27 States and Union Territories (UTs) of the country. This season, teams from Nepal and Bangladesh will be participating as foreign nations in the tournament. A total of over 180 football matches are scheduled to be played.
In addition, this year the Subroto Cup has joined with AIFF and the young budding footballers will be registered on the Centralized platform of the AIFF. There is also a proposal to create a combined XI from the tournament to field a team in other competitions as well in association with AIFF.
“This season the Subroto Cup is in association with AIFF and there are proposals where we create a combined XI, a Subroto XI and field this team in various other competitions,” added the Air Marshal.
The tournament began in the 1960s and is the oldest school-based national event in India which was created to promote football as a sport at the grassroots level. Many teams from countries like Brazil, the United Kingdom and more which have been popular for producing world-class players in the sport have previously participated in the league.
The Pilgrim Higher Secondary School in Dimapur, Nagaland are the defending champions of the Junior Boys tournament, while the Junior Girls champions are the St. Patrick’s School from Gumla, Jharkhand. The Sub Junior Boys tournament last year was won by Heirok Higher Secondary School from Imphal, Manipur.
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