Sri Lanka’s first-ever junior football league kicks off
View(s):‘Unity Through Football’ Junior Football League, the country’s first-ever junior football league, kicked off under a carnival atmosphere at the CR&FC ground in Longdon Place, Colombo and has reached its successful third week.
The UTF Junior Football League, a competition for the Under-10s, was initiated with six teams from Colombo as a pilot project as the organisers intend the kids to get the real feel of playing in a league on a home and away basis every weekend, beginning from January 11. The teams come from Sri Lanka’s leading football academies including Colombo Kickerz Football Academy, Cooray Football Academy, Java Lane Football Academy, Henry Pedris Football Academy and hosts Renown Football Academy. Each weekend the academies will take turns to host matches for the week in their respective home grounds.
The league, organised by Renown Football Academy, one of Sri Lanka’s leading football academies, is backed by their global award winning project, ‘Unity Through Football’ (UTF), which uses football as a tool to unite all, especially the children.
“We have talented kids all over the country and that if we train them properly and give them the opportunity to shine these kids can become the future stars of Sri Lankan football. That’s the reason why Renown FA, together with the Ministry of Education and SLSFA supported several junior football initiatives through the country including tournament sponsorships, free girls academies, coaching manuals and life skill programmes,” stated Vincent Sritharan Peeris, the brainchild behind Sri Lanka’s first ever junior football league and the President of Renown FA.
The UTF Junior Football League is part of an overall plan to help develop football at the junior level with their international partner network by going all over the country and conducting workshops for coaches and trainers, training sessions and life skills programme for young kids and donating around 1000 balls to needy schools and academies.
“Renown FA has been supporting junior football in Sri Lanka, mainly schools football, for more than a decade. We sponsored the Sri Lanka Schools Football Association (SLSFA) Under-18 Football Championship from 2016 and initiated the SLSFA Under-10 Football Carnival last year in order to attract more youngsters into football, where more than 7000 kids from all over Sri Lanka participated at district level and over 1500 in the finals,” further revealed Peeris, who is silently contributing to the development of junior football in the country.
The league will continue for five weekends with the opening and final week matches being streamed online with weekly updates of fixtures, results and table to give a firsthand experience of a league. The organisers intend to add more age groups as the league progresses during the coming years.
