28th Senior Women’s NFC group stage to be played in six states

New Delhi: The 28th Senior Women’s National Football Championship 2023-24 is set to kick off on Sunday. The group stage will be contested by 30 teams divided into six groups – each to be played in six different venues.

Three teams have gained direct entry to the final round – defending champions Tamil Nadu, last season’s finalists Haryana and final round hosts West Bengal.

Group A, which will be played at the Mahamaya Sports Stadium in Ghaziabad from November 24 to December 3, has record 21-time champions Manipur alongside Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and hosts Uttar Pradesh.

DL Roy Memorial District Stadium in Krishnanagar, West Bengal will host the four-team Group B from November 15 to 19. Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and neighbours Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are part of the group.

Kerala, runners-up in 2005-06, are in Group C, which is set to take place at the Bangalore Football Stadium in Bengaluru from November 23 to December 2. Hosts Karnataka, Tripura, Sikkim, Assam and Chandigarh are the other teams in the group.

The GNDU Sports Complex in Amritsar, which hosted Group E of the Santosh Trophy in October, will also host Group D of the Senior Women’s NFC, consisting of Jharkhand, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and hosts Punjab. The group will be played from November 15 to 24.

Newly-crowned 37th National Games champions Odisha will host Group E in Sundargarh at the Sundargarh Stadium and the Biju Patnaik Mini Stadium from November 12 to 21. They will be joined by Goa, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

Railways, losing semi-finalists from last season, are in Group F with Maharashtra, Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar and hosts Himachal Pradesh. The matches will take place from November 21 to 29 at the SAI Ground and NIT Ground in Anu, Hamirpur.

The six group winners and three best runners-up will qualify for the 28th Senior Women’s National Football Championship 2023-24 final round to be held in West Bengal in April 2024. The final round will be held in a similar format as last season with two groups of six teams each, from where the top two teams will qualify for the semi-finals.

–IANS