Our Reporter
Dimapur, Sep. 11(EMN): The 1st Nagaland Futsal Championship kicked off on Saturday at DDSC Stadium, Dimapur, with 17 teams participating from various districts. The five-day tournament is being organised by the Nagaland Football Association (NFA) in collaboration with Dimapur District Football Association (DDFA).
The president of NFA, Neibou Sekhose informed that the champion of the tournament will represent the state in the forthcoming National Futsal Championship which will be held at the end of November 2021 in Shillong. He also stated that for organising the Futsal tournament, AIFF has appointed Kevinguto Sekhose as head of referee and 18 persons have qualified for the AIFF Futsal Referring introductory course.
Encouraging the players, he said that Futsal improves decision- making skills, provides more touches on the ball, develops confidence in oneself, allows players to be creative in getting around the opposition and improves reaction time.
It was announced that the champion of the 1st Nagaland Futsal Championship will receive INR 1 lakh, runner ups team will receive INR 50,000 and semi-finalist teams will receive INR 20,000 each.
The special guest for the inaugural programme, Geoffrey Yaden, editor-in-chief, Nagaland Post also encouraged the players and said that Nagaland was not new to football and had achieved quite a reputation in football.
He said that the state had not gone backwards in football like some claimed but the other states had moved forward. He encouraged the players to be disciplined, committed and continue with the spirit sportsmanship so that they can become champions.
State selection for Santosh Trophy zonal round
The President of NFA informed that the Santosh Trophy zonal round would be held in Tripura from November 21 to December 3, 2021. He stated that the selection of the state team will be held in the last part of September for which the date and venue will be announced later.
He informed that only registered players can represent the state team and NFA will issue NOC to the CRS registered players. He asked all the players to register with the respective clubs which are recognised by the DFA and approved by the NFA.
He further appealed to all the clubs and tournament organisers to affiliate their tournament with the NFA through respective DFA in order to be a recognised tournament by the NFA and AIFF.