JFA U14 Women’s Championship: Skeleton key to grassroots talents

The final round of JFA U14 Women’s Football Championship is now underway at Bir Sreshtha Shahid Sipahi Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in the capital’s Kamalapur. The BFF, with the financial assistance from Japan Football Association, holds this tournament every year since 2014 in order to pick up some young talents from the grass root level as well as to spread the game among the girls across the country. The week long final round of the tournament’s ongoing edition has begun on July 12, Friday while it is scheduled to be wrapped up with the final match on July 19. Earlier, a total of 40 districts took part in the tournament’s qualifying round, which was held at six venues across the country from June 17 – 28. The champion teams of the six venues and the two best runners-up teams have been chosen to compete in the eight-team final round. The six champion teams are – Tangail, Rajshahi, Magura, Rangpur, Rangamati and Manikganj. Apart from the champions, two best runners up teams – Mymensingh and Thakurgaon – who fought their champion opponents real hard, also qualified for participating in the final round. These eight teams have been split into two groups to play round-robin league matches to determine the top two teams who will advance to the semifinals, which have been scheduled to be held on July 18. The champion team of the final round will be awarded with trophy, medals and prize money Tk 50,000 while the runners-up will get Tk 25,000 in addition to the trophy and medals. Besides, all the teams will get participation money of Tk 15,000 each for the preliminary round while Tk 20,000 each for the final round. The BFF and its partner in the tournament Japan Football Association believe that spreading sports like football can empower the country’s women. Since the beginning, the tournament helped Bangladesh’s women football to get a number of young talents including Sanjida, Tohura, Shamsunnahar and Rozina, who later became the Bangladesh’s football ambassadors to the international stage. This talent hunt programme also help the federation to dynamise the local football authorities i.e. the District Football Associations. Like the previous years, prominent corporate group Walton become the co-sponsor of the tournament. The football authorities are considering to raise the prize money so that more girls from all the districts become inspired to participate in the game.
Previous PostJFA U14 Women’s Championship grand finale Friday
Next PostBangamata U19 Women’s Int’l Gold Cup: Inception of a new odyssey