70 football city champion teams set to qualify for Socca World Cup 2019
As many as 70 football city champion teams are all set to compete in the 2019 Intra-City Championships to qualify for the Socca World Cup 2019 which is to be held in October at Rethymno, Greece.
Leisure Leagues Pakistan (LLP) has achieved another great milestone as it has hosted its leagues in 74 cities and the process of finding a national champion, which will represent Pakistan in Six-a-Side Socca World Cup, has already started. There are 20 cities of the country where LLP has hosted more than one league – therefore it will hold Intra-City Championships in those 20 cities so that a city champion can emerge from there as well.
The 74 city champion teams will be divided in groups of four teams each to play group stage matches in their respective regions. Top 16 to 20 teams will play in the LLP National Finals in Karachi this year in July. The winning team of LLP National Finals will represent Pakistan in the second edition of ISF Socca World Cup. The marquee event of the ISF will now move from last year’s venue of Lisbon, Portugal to Rethymno, Greece and will be held from October 12 to 20. Last year, Lahore’s ICAW represented Pakistan in Socca World in Portugal and won Fair-Play award for Pakistan as well.
The number of teams has jumped from last year’s 32 teams, which played in the inaugural ISF Six-a-Side Football Socca World Cup, to a whopping 80 teams this year hailing from across the globe. Germany won the first edition.
The membership of the federation has also increased to 87 countries – an upsurge of more than 50 per cent from last year. It is evident from this that ISF has built a respectable reputation around the world and more countries have been enticed to join the Socca club.
Meanwhile, LLP is also becoming bigger with each passing day and has expanded its operations of promoting and organizing mini-sided football leagues in 74 cities in only a couple of years, which has attracted a lot of recognition not only in the country but also abroad.
The fact that LLP has grown exponentially, with matches taking place in 74 cities and more than 10,000 players were now taking part in competitions every week, was mentioned during International Socca Federation (ISF) World Conference in Birmingham last month.
The ISF CEO Thanos Papadopolous paid rich tribute to everyone at Leisure Leagues Pakistan (LLP) – the ISF affiliated body in Pakistan for their impressive progress. He said that LLP has done a wonderful job in making six-a-side football as one of the fastest growing sports in Pakistan and has become a benchmark for other countries to follow.
Pakistan based Vice President ISF, Shahzeb Trunkwala, Leisure Leagues Pakistan’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Ishaq Shah, Deputy COO, Zabe Khan and Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Vice Presidents, Amir Dogar and Sardar Naveed Haider also attended the conference.
Mr. Mehmood Trunkwala, Chairman World Group, said that it gives Trunkwala Family a great humbling feeling that thousands of youth were now directly involved in healthy activities through their LLP initiative.
“I am happy to see our team working brilliantly to reach several dozens of cities so that the game of football is made reachable to everyone. I believe LLP has progressed by leaps and bounds and has played a great role in community inclusion as well as keeping our youth, who are the future of the country, involved in healthy activities,” he added.
COO Ishaq Shah said that LLP has a vision to reach to every city and every town of the country so that there remains no person, who wants to play football and don’t has a chance to do it. LLP envisages to provide a platform to every person of the country who wants to play the beautiful game of foot
ball.
