Informing that Nagaland is one of the first States to initiate the pre-Subroto championship to select the team to represent the State at the 63rd Subroto Cup, Director of the Department of Youth Resources and Sports, Kethosituo Sekhose has cautioned that the strict action would be taken against any team that violates the age criteria of the prestigious tournament.

Learning from the mistake of last year’s mistake where Nagaland’s U-14 team was disqualified after detection of overage players, Sekhose informed that in order to avoid such an incident, the Department will be taking the help of the Chief Medical Officer to ensure that necessary age testing methods are implemented.

Regarding the pre-Subroto championship, the Director informed that this event will be conducted in all the 16 districts for Under17 and Under 15 for boys and Under 17 for girls. The best teams will be selected to represent the districts at the State level at IG Stadium, Kohima where the final selection matches will begin on 5th June in the form of league and knock-out basis.

Sekhose stated that the District Sports Offices have been intimated about the by-laws of the Tournament. The pre-Subroto championship in all districts will be held before 31st May 2024.

Read more: Pre-Subroto Tournament for Mokokchung and Longleng to be conducted on 31st May

The Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society, that organises the Subroto Cup International Football Tournament had earlier informed that the tournament is planned to be conducted from 30 July to 11 September 2024 at New Delhi in Boys (U-17) and Girls (U-17) categories and the Boys (U-15) category at Bengaluru.

The Organising committee also informed that along with AIFF officials, it will be undertaking a skeletal age determination test of all the players at the venue and in case, four or more players are found to be overage from a team then the team will be disqualified from taking any part in the tournament.