The "Coca Cola" sponsored Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy for Sub-Junior (Under-15) National Football Championship will get started in the last week of September.
The AIFF has been able to rope in multinational soft drink giants Coca Cola Inc. as sponsors for the tournament.
In a release issued by the All India Football Federation, all the member state associations are directed to conduct inter-school, inter-district, or inter–club tournaments to select players for their respective state teams.
Under the new format the teams are divided into four groups and each group is based on a zone. The preliminary group stage matches will be held in four different venues. The final round will be held either in Delhi or Haryana.
The final round will be played in a round-robin format, with top two teams from each group qualifying along with the last editions winner, Mizoram and the host team, either Delhi or Haryana.
Participating teams and groupings
Group I – South-West
• Tamil Nadu
• Karnataka
• Kerala
• Pondicherry
• Goa
• Maharashtra
• Gujarat
• Daman and Diu
Group II – East
• West Bengal
• Orissa
• Jharkhand
• Madhya Pradesh
• Bihar
• Chhattisgarh
• Rajasthan
• Andaman and Nicobar Island
Group III – North-East
• Manipur
• Nagaland
• Arunachal Pradesh
• Sikkim
• Assam
• Meghalaya
• Tripura
Group IV – North
• Delhi
• Uttaranchal
• Punjab
• Uttar Pradesh
• Chandigarh
• Himachal Pradesh
• Jammu and Kashmir
• Haryana
Final round teams
• Host team (Delhi or Haryana)
• Mizoram (last year's winner)
• Winner of Group I
• Runner up of Group I
• Winner of Group II
• Runner up of Group II
• Winner of Group III
• Runner up of Group III
• Winner of Group IV
• Runner up of Group IV
Source: Indianfootball.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Tuesday 25 August 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.