Senapati village launches premier football league
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, July 29 2012: Aimed at identifying talented players and groom them to world class footballers the Tamnuilong Ward (T Akeng Memorial) Premier League football competition has been launched from today at T Khullen RS Si-rohi ground in Senapati district.

T akeng was the chief of T Khullen village.

As chief guest of the League's inauguration programme social worker O Henry exuded confidence that the unique and bold initiative of T Khullen Youth Club would yield the desired result of producing players of repute from the region.

State Bank of India's Assistant Branch Manager (Senapati) K Kanarei also graced the occasion as the chief guest of honour.

The League would be participated by one team each from the 11 wards under T Khullen with atleast five matches scheduled to be played on Saturdays.

According to president of the host Club S Rangpong, T Khullen was able to produce players at the national level but sports movement in the region declined significantly in the last few decades.

Opining that agricultural activities being the main source of income generation, people of T Khullen, particularly the youths cannot concentrate much on games and sports thus leading to the downfall in the sports movement, he convey-ed that the Premier League is being organised with the primary aim to revive sports in the region.

Further informing that football tournaments used to be organised in the village in the past but competitions that concluded within a week or two due to time constraints was not successful in churning out footballers of repute, Rang-pong expressed hope that the new format of matches in the weekends would facilitate individual players to hone their skills and enable teams to work out effective strategies.

Informing that the Ward Premier League, the first of its kind in Senapati, would continue till December, he also stated that final match would be arranged to coincide with Christmas festivities.

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