President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has been presented with the National Football Team jerseys prior to the team’s first game in the biggest football carnival of the South Asia region, the “Ooredoo SAFF Championship 2021”.

President of the Football Association of Maldives, Bassam Adeel Jaleel presented the two jerseys of the national team to President Solih prior to the SAFF Championship scheduled to be kicked off on Friday night.

President Solih will be present during the Maldives team’s first match, against Nepal.

A government official revealed that the president will join all of the matches played by the national team, if he is in the country.

The 13th SAFF Championship begins on Friday, and will proceed till October 16.

Maldives is set to face Bangladesh on October 7, Sri Lanka on October 10 and India on October 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.