The Sub Junior National Football Championship, also known as Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy, is an Indian annual

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament for under-13 teams representing the

states of India State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country ** Nation state, ...

. It was formerly held for the U-16 age group before being converted into an U-13 tournament from the 2023-24 edition. The tournament was started in 1977 for boys under the age 16 years. The tournament was constituted at the Darjeeling meeting of the AIFF on 12 June 1976. AIFF donated the trophy in the memory of former President of

Karnataka State Football Association The Karnataka State Football Association (abbreviated KSFA), formerly the Mysore Football Association, is one of the 36 Indian state football associations that are affiliated with the All India Football Federation. The KSFA administers associat ...

, Mir Iqbal Hussain.

Conduct and format

From the 2009–10 season onwards, the championship has been sponsored by

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

and was rechristened as the Coca-Cola MIHT for a period of three years. This also saw a change in the format of the tournament where there are three different levels before the selection of national team. At national level, a total of 12 state teams compete to decide the national winner state. The 32nd edition of Sub-junior National Football Championship was conducted in 2009 with the new format. Subsequently, tournament has been held from last three years with similar format. The three levels of the tournament are as explained
1. District Level
The district football association would select a team of 16 players from among all the young footballers to represent the state at zonal level tournament. This would be done through Inter-School competitions conducted between participating school teams in each district.
2. Zonal Level
All the state teams will be divided into 5 zones. The state teams from each zone would play in a tournament at a zonal level. The top 2 teams will qualify for the National finals.
3. National Level
Total 12 teams - 10 teams (2 from each zones) plus the last years winners and the home team would compete at the National finals. Each team would then play in a round robin format. The top four teams with the maximum points would advance to the Semi-Final stage, two of them would progress to the Final Stage. The winning team would be rewarded the Coca-Cola Mir Iqal Hussain Trophy. At the National Finals, AIFF would identify and select 40 of the most promising football talent. These 40 footballers would be groomed by AIFF to become the Official National Under-16 Sub-Junior Team.

Championship structure

The NFC structure was converted into a two tiered championship format from the 2023–24 season. The state associations are eligible to participate in the championship through the two tiers of the competition played across the country.

Results

The following is the list of winners and runners-up:

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20110716215106/http://www.the-aiff.com/pages/tournament/tournament-event.php?tournamentdetail=53 {{DEFAULTSORT:Football In India Football cup competitions in India Youth football in India Youth football competitions

Conduct and format

Championship structure

Results

See also

References

External links