Football Association of Odisha (FAO) is all set to host the prestigious 66th Edition of the National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy at four different venues of the state from May 11.
Altogether 34 teams including 32 state teams, Services and Indian Railways would take part in the tournament. The preparatory work of the four venues already over Barabati Stadium (Cuttack), Kalinga Stadium (Bhubaneswar), VSS Stadium (Sambalpur) and L Mishra Mini Stadium (Baragarh), FAO secretary Sanjay Behera told reports at Barabati Stadium here on Wednesday.
As many as 25 teams divided in seven groups to play the pre-quarter final rounds and top teams of each group would join the quarterfinal teams. The host Odisha along with West Bengal, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, Services, Chhattisgarh, Railways and Tamil Nadu got the direct entry into the quarterfinals. The champion team would receive the trophy along with cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and the runners-up team to be richer by Rs 3 lakh. Santosh Trophy is an annual Indian football tournament which is contested by states and Government institutions. The first winners were Bengal, who lead the all-time winners list with 31 titles till date.
The tournament first began in 1941, and was the premier football competition in the country before the National Football League started in the year 1996. The trophy as named after the late Maharaja Sir Manmatha Nath Roy Chowdhary of Santosh, which is now in Bangladesh, who had been the President of the Indian Football Association, the football organisation of Bengal and the donators of the trophy. The runners-up trophy, Kamla Gupta Trophy, was donated by the IFA.
The third place teams receive the Sampangi Cup which was presented by the Mysore Football Association (now KSFA) in 1952, in the memory of Sampangi, a renowned footballer from Mysore.
As per the Odisha performance in the meet the state team qualified maximum up to the semifinal stage in the year in 1967 and 1994.
In these two years Odisha was the host team.
