62nd edition of Subroto Cup to kick off on Tuesday

Khel Today Bureau 

New Delhi: The 62^nd Edition of the prestigious Subroto Cup International Football Tournament, will kick off on September 19, 2023, with the Junior Girls (U 17) matches beginning first. Renowned television personality and actor Rannvijay Singha will be the Guest of Honour at the grand opening ceremony, planned at the Dr. B.R Ambedkar Stadium in the national capital.

The opening ceremony will be followed with a Group E game between Govt. Bethlehem Vengthlang Middle School-2, Mizoram and Tripura Sports School, Badharghat, which has a scheduled 4.50pm IST kick-off. Also, for the first time in the Girls category, a school from Jammu & Kashmir will be participating in the tournament. DNRM Govt. Higher Secondary School, Poonch, will be one of the 33 Girls teams, representing the Union Territory, creating history.

The 62nd Subroto Cup will be telecast LIVE on the SportsCast India YouTube channel. You can also catch the Highlights on the Prasar Bharti & AIFF YouTube channels.

In the morning, Vasant Valley School, Vasant Kunj, Delhi will face Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand, at the Tejas Football Ground in another Group E fixture. This will be the inaugural game of this year’s edition and has an 8.00am IST scheduled kick-off. The Girls group games will be of 30-minutes duration for each of the two halves.

The Opening Ceremony will begin with a magnificent parade display by the Air Warrior Drill Team of the Indian Air Force which will be followed by a colourful cultural performance by the school kids of Air Force Bal Bharti School.

A total of 33 teams are in fray in the Junior Girls category, which is divided into eight groups, including Bangladesh Krida Shiksha Protishthan (BKSP) of Bangladesh, adding international flavour to the tournament.

The winners of each group will qualify for the quarterfinals. The group stage matches will start from tomorrow and end on the 23^rd of this month. The quarterfinals will be played on 24^th September with the semi-finals to be played the next day. The finals of the Girls category is scheduled on 26^th of September at the Ambedkar Stadium.

Defending champions, St. Patrick High School, Gumla, Jharkhand will start their title defence in Group F, when they take on Air Force Bal Bharti School, New Delhi at the Ambedkar Stadium on September 20, 2023. They will take motivation for this year’s competition knowing that Shivani Toppo, Shaulina Dang and Vikshit Bara, who represented the school in the winning campaign last year, are now part of the U-17 Indian team, which is currently playing the U-17 Asian Cup Qualifiers in Thailand.

Apart from these players, Khushi Kumari who represented Bihar is also a part of the same Indian squad highlighting the influence of the Subroto Cup for the young players of the country.

Besides the hallowed Ambedkar Stadium, the Tejas Football Ground (Delhi), the Subroto Football Ground (Delhi) and the G.D. Goenka School (Gurugram) grounds will be the venues in the Delhi/NCR region.

The Subroto Cup, hosted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) under the aegis of the SMSES, was first held in 1960 and was named after Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, who conceived the idea in order to promote sport at the grassroot level.

A total of 108 teams will be participating across the three categories from 27 States and Union Territories (UTs) of the country. Teams from Bangladesh and Nepal will also bring in foreign participation. A total of over 180 football matches are scheduled to be played.