Courtesy: Ceylon Daily News

For the fifth successive year the Soccer Advisory Committee of St Joseph's College has organized the "Josephian Futsal Soccer Carnival" today, November 1, from 8 am onwards at the college ground. This soccer extravaganza has now turned out to be a very eagerly anticipated calendar event of St Joseph's College. The positive feedback and popularity of the last soccer carnivals has encouraged the organizers to make it an even better football experience for everyone this year. The uniqueness in this soccer carnival is that it reaches out to all the different dimensions possible to provide a learning, rewarding and most importantly entertaining experience to all those who take part.

Ably supported by the Rector of St Josephs, Rev Fr Sylvester Ranasinghe, an indefatigable organizational team lead by a well known football maestro, Balendra Anthony is the brains and brawn behind this successful event. The organizers have expended this event into a truly national sporting event with more than 45 schools from all nine provinces participating this year. There will be schools from the West (St Joseph's, St Peter's, St Benedict's, S Thomas', Royal College, etc), North (St Henry's Illavalai), South (St Aloysius College, Devananda College etc), East (St Joseph's College, Anuradhapura), Central Region (Kingswood College, St Anthony's College, Katugastota, Dharmaraja, Kandy etc) as well as International Schools (CIS, British School, Gateway International, Lyceum etc)

The tournament will be held for six age groups starting from the Under 10s to all the way up to the Under 19s with a mammoth 1500 players expected to participate. Cup, Plate, Bowl and Saucer trophies will be awarded in the Under 13, 15, 17 and 19 age groups. Under 19 teams will play out for the Rev Fr Sylvester Ranasinghe Challenge Trophy. St Joseph's College, Colombo have won this coveted trophy for the last two years. All the participants in the Under 10 and 11 age groups will receive medals and the organizers have taken this step to encourage the kids considering the main focus of this endeavour is the grass root level search for talent as this in fact would be the perfect stepping stone for young and talented soccerites to shine. This would directly contribute to the development of the sport in Sri Lanka. The event is endorsed by the Sri Lankan Schools Football Federation and is held with the blessings of the Football Federation of Sri Lanka. Ranjith Rodrigo, President, FFSL will be the Chief Guest and Upali Hewage DIG (ex), Secretary General, FFSL along with Robert Pieris, Patron, Renown Sports Club will be the Guests of Honour, Mrs Sanjeevani R De Silva, Head of Corporate Affairs, Standard Chartered Bank will be the Chief Guest at the Opening Ceremony at 8.00 am. Credit should go to Renown SC one of the leading football club's in Sri Lanka and their Patron Crispin Pieris for coming forward to sponsor this event this year as well which will surely help to unearth future stars of Sri Lankan football. The other main sponsor is Special Blossom.com the leading web content developer. Standard Chartered Bank and Cargills (Ceylon) PLC are the other sponsors for this event. MBC Networks is the Media Partner for the eve The event has been great crowd puller for the past four years and +0+a large spectator turnout is expected. –