Senior Women's National Football Championship set to kick-off in Kerala

The Senior Women's NFC that will conclude on December 9, will be held in four venues - Municipal Stadium, Kuthuparamba; EMS Corporation Stadium, Kozhikode; Calicut University, Kozhikode; and Calicut Medical College, Kozhikode.

A total of 32 teams have been divided into eight groups, with teams in each group set to play against each other for the qualifying stage. The winners of qualifying matches will play the semi-finals, with the two winners from the last four proceeding to the final.

The senior women's national team is preparing for the upcoming AFC Asian Cup India 2022 which will commence in January 2022. They are currently in Brazil from (November 20, 2021) to play in a 4-nation International tournament in Manaus.

This will be the first time any Indian Senior National Team will lock horns with Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela in their three matches, all of which are part of their preparation for the upcoming AFC Women's Asian Cup India 2022. The team had been camping in Jamshedpur with infrastructural and logistical aid from the Government of Jharkhand over the last four months.

The Indian women had last month travelled to Dubai, Bahrain, and Sweden to play six friendly matches, while earlier in 2021, they had travelled to Serbia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan for international exposure tours.

The groups are as follows:

Group A: Manipur, Daman & Diu, Pondicherry, and Meghalaya; Group B: Railways, Chhattisgarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, and Tripura; Group C: Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan, and Bihar; Group D: Jharkhand, Delhi, Goa, and Karnataka; Group E: Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim, and Maharashtra; Group F: Odisha, Haryana, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh; Group G: Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Mizoram, and Uttarakhand; Group H: Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, and Telangana. (ANI)