NEW DELHI: The All India Football Federation has confirmed that the inaugural AIFF Club Futsal Championship would be held in Shillong from from November 1-13.
This was among the key decisions taken at the AIFF executive committee meeting held Friday.
Abhishek Yadav, deputy general secretary, AIFF, updated the committee about the ongoing National Centre of Excellence, Kolkata, the first phase of which is to be completed by the end of this year, followed by a soft launch.
Sunando Dhar, CEO Leagues, informed that the Hero I-League will kick-off in December. “The number of matches have increased and the League will get over by first-week of April 2022,” Dhar said. “The Hero I-League Qualifiers will kick off under the bubble in Bengaluru from October first week. We have had 29 teams from 19 states contesting for the 10 spots in the HIL qualifiers.”
The committee also congratulated Gokulam Kerala FC for being the first Indian women’s club to qualify for the AFC Women’s Club Championship pilot project to be held in Jordan. “The qualification to the Hero IWL will be through the state leagues, and state associations are supposed to complete their state leagues by January 15, 2022.”
The committee also ratified the implementation of a minimum criteria for all state associations to nominate teams for the subsequent 2nd division/HIL qualifiers, and also the HIWL.
Meanwhile, owing to the pandemic situation, the competition calendar of 2020-21 has been brought forward to 2021-22. The National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy zonal rounds will be held from November 21, while the final round is slated to be held from January 5, 2022 onwards.
In addition, the Women’s Senior National Football Championship will be held from November 2021 onwards.
