Salalah to host West Asian U15 football from Dec 1

ADIL AL BALUSHI

MUSCAT, NOV 9

The Oman Football Association (OFA) has decided to host the Under-15 West Asian Football Championship in Salalah instead of Khasab, an OFA source told Oman Daily Observer.

The West Asian event is scheduled during December 1 to 10 under the umbrella of West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) in coordination with the OFA. Salalah was the host city for the latest AFC Under-19 Asian Cup qualifiers in September. The Dhofar Governorate has enough availability of the training venues of different local clubs and two stadiums namely A’ Saada Stadium and Salalah Sports Complex besides a variety of accommodation facilities. These facilities met with the requirement raised by WAFF to host a successful event.

The ten days tournament will feature participation of eight confirmed teams namely Jordan, UAE, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen and the hosts Sultanate of Oman. All the participating teams will take part in this event with players born in 2008. The teams will be distributed in two groups and each group will comprise four teams.

On the other hand, the Oman under-15 football team commenced a new warm-up gathering in Muscat on Thursday under watchful eyes of national experienced coach Anwar al Habsi. The camp will run for three days as part of the team’s preparation to take part in the Arab School Football Championship which is scheduled to be held in Cairo, Egypt from November 18 to 27.

According to some sources, the Arab School football tournament may not occur during the scheduled period due to the political situation in Palestine as some teams withdrew from the event. However, the organising committee did not announce till now any official news relevant to postponement of the event. As per the plan, Oman team will travel to Cairo on November 17.

Oman’s last local preparatory camp was held during October end and it lasted for five days. The internal camp had featured two friendly matches against Kuwait. The Oman junior team won both of them with a 3-0 score in the opening fixture and 2-0 in the second match. In the both encounters, the head coach took the advantage of giving the opportunity for maximum players to play and to evaluate their final performance and readiness ahead of finalising the starting line-up.