310 Northern teams in the fray

The 5th Milo Cup Football Championship organised and conducted by Jaffna Football Association and the District Secretariat of Jaffna, kicked off yesterday with the participation of 310 teams. The tournament, which runs until November 4, will have the participation of 100 school teams and 210 club teams from the Northern region, where Football is an overly popular sport.

The tournament will include over 300 games and will be held at 11 different venues in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts and includes teams playing in the Leagues of Island, Jaffna, Walikamak, Wadamarachchi, Point Pedro, Maruthakeni and Kilinochchi.

Singing Fish Football Club, one of the leading sides from the North, are the current title holders and they will be looking forward to continue the trend this year too. Regarded as one of the keenly participated and well organised tournaments in the country, the competition originated in 2013 with the aim of developing the game of Football in Jaffna.

At the beginning the tournament had 40 teams but the number gradually increased as years passed by. Last year the number of teams were 150 and this time around the number has doubled. With the increase of the number of teams, the organisers has made all arrangements to run a comprehensive tournament, with the culmination set for November 4 at the Duraiappah Stadium in the heart of Jaffna city. The tournament is sponsored by Nestle Lanka's Milo.