Football: Maiden Mercantile Futsal Tournament on December 3 and 4

The maiden Futsal Tournament conducted by the Mercantile Football Association will take place on December 3 and 4 from 8.00am onwards at the Colombo 10 Futsal World. 

The competition is being held to promote Futsal by the Mercantile Football Association to promote the game. Twenty four teams in the Mercantile Sector will take part in the tournament. 

They are Airport and Aviation, Akbar Brothers, Amana Bank, Amana Takaful ‘A’, Amana Takaful ‘B’, Ceylinco Insurance, Ceylon Business Appliances, Citizen Development Bank, Colombo Dockyard, Commercial Bank, Expo Lanka Freight, Galadari Hotel, Hatton National Bank, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC), John Keells, Lake House, LB Finance, Seylan Bank, Softlogic Group, Sri Lanka Telecom, Standard Chartered Bank, Virtusa Ltd, and WNS Group. These are companies and banks attached to the Mercantile Sector. 

The first stage will be played on a league basis in eight groups. From the pre-quarter finals the contest will be on a knock-out basis. 

The finals will be on December 4 from 6.00pm onward. The Mercantile Football Association states that from next year they are planning to conduct the competition on an annual basis. 

The plans as to what should be given to the winning has not been decided as yet. Nevertheless plans are afoot to award cash prizes and awards to the winning teams, runners-up and third place winners. 

Altogether forty matches are scheduled to be played in the entire tournament. 

There will be 24 league matches on the first day December 3. 

On the second day nine matches will be completed.