President Solih officially inaugurates 13th SAFF Championship Campaign

The 13th SAFF Championship Campaign has officially been inaugurated.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih inaugurated the campaign, organized by the Football Association of Maldives (FAM), during a ceremony held at the National Football Stadium commonly known as Galolhu Stadium, on Sunday night.

The campaign, which will be extended nationwide will see marketing and public relations activities conducted nationwide.

During the inauguration ceremony, a video demonstration of the campaign was shown, alongside a presentation which further enlightened the purpose of the campaign.

FAM President, Bassam Adeel Jaleel also introduced a book titled “Aharemenge Faharu” to commemorate the SAFF Championship.

The ceremony also saw the conferring of certificates to the partners and sponsors of the event.

The 13th SAFF Championship is scheduled from 1 - 13 October.

Maldives won its bids to host the 13th SAFF Championship, scheduled for this October, in early August.

Initially set to be held in Bangladesh during September 2020, the SAFF championship was delayed to be held this ongoing year, in the face of Covid-19 threats.

Comprised of 30 players, Maldives National Football Team departed to Qatar on Friday, for its training camp ahead of the championship. The team will return to Maldives after concluding the training camp, on September 28. The national team began training for the championship on August 26, with a preliminary squad comprising of 34 players.

Maldives will face Nepal in the first match of the tournament on October 1, before facing Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India respectively on October 7, 10 and 13. The top two finishers will play the final on October 16.

This is the second time Maldives will be hosting the highly-anticipated SAFF Championship. The first time was in 2008, where co-hosted with Sri Lanka. That time Maldives brought home the championship for the first time. The last SAFF championship was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2018 where Maldives and India made it to the finals. Maldives took home the championship that year as well.