The Office of the Accountant General (Audit II), Maharashtra, Nagpur, has been entrusted with the responsibility of hosting the West Zone Football Tournament under the patronage of Dattaprasad Shirsat, IAAS, Accountant General. The five-day tournament will be held from February 9 to 13 at the South East Central Railway Stadium, Motibagh, Nagpur.
Divisional Railway Manager, South East Central Railway, Nagpur, Deepak Kumar Gupta will inaugurate the tournament on February 9 at 9.00 am. Hosts and defending champions AG Maharashtra, along with AG Gujarat, AG Chhattisgarh, AG Madhya Pradesh and AG Rajasthan, are the five teams participating in the tournament. AG Madhya Pradesh finished as runners-up in the IA & AD West Zone Tournament 2025.
The winner and runners-up of the tournament will qualify for the IA & AD Inter-Zonal Football Tournament scheduled to be held in Kolkata from March 23 to 27, where they will face teams from the North, East and South Zones.
All matches will be of 90 minutes duration and played on a round-robin basis. A total of 10 matches will be played, with two matches scheduled each day. Teams will be awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and none for a loss. The team finishing with the highest points will be declared champions, while the second-placed team will be runners-up.
The departmental referees appointed by headquarters for the tournament are Andrew Shekhar (PAG Karnataka), Irfanulla Khan (PAG Karnataka) and T David Prasanna Kumar (PAG Telangana). R Johnson (PAG Tamil Nadu) and Satish Kumar Bagga (PAG New Delhi) have been appointed as selectors.
Accommodation for all teams, managers and referees has been arranged at Hotel Tuli International, Sadar, Nagpur. Various committees have been formed to ensure the smooth conduct of the tournament.
All matches will be streamed live to enable officials of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), along with their families and friends, to watch the games live from anywhere in the country. The matches will also be available later on the official YouTube channel.
AG Maharashtra team:
Sumit Pundir (Captain), Pawan Singh Rawat, Ashish, Bilal Sheikh, Sukhdeep Singh Sahota, Raju Aknath Gaikwad, Afzal Akhtar, Nachiket Palav, Jang Bahadur Singh, Akbar Siddhique NP, Alim Sheikh, David Francis, Momin Hashmi, Naquib Akhtar, Anirban Pal, Suryabali Yadav, Aakar Dhanu and Zahid Akhtar.
Stand-bys: Anil Chaudhary, Atif Akhtar and K K Bharti.
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