Draws for the Under-15's and Under-17's
by Ayrton Galea - 1st August 2014
The draws of the Under-15's and Under-17's leagues respectively were held yesterday during a press conference held at the Centenary Hall at Ta' Qali.
Under-15's Champions and Knockout winners were drawn to start in group six against Melita, Mqabba and the winner of the match between Dingli vs Sirens/Kalkara. On the other hand, the Under-17's Team will start in group five against the following teams: Hamrun, Floriana and the winners of the match Rabat and Birzebbugia.
This season, there will be a complete reform in the league set-up as the Youth FA, following having talks with the MFA Technical Centre, want to ensure that all leagues will reflect the true level of the teams and to have more balanced leagues.
The season will kick-off with a Knock-Out featuring the teams in Section C which would see twelve teams moving on to the group stage which includes the teams that were due to take part in Sections A and B. The knock-out will be played on two legs and if the aggregate score is a draw, penalty-kicks would determine the winner. The teams which are eliminated from the Knock-Out would play in Section D which would be played on a league-basis with the winner and runner-up being promoted to Section C.
In the Group Stage, the four teams play on a league-basis with the winner moving on to Section A, the runner-up moving on to Section B while the teams placing third and fourth will play in Section C1 and Section C2. Third and fourth-placed teams in Groups 1 to 4 will play in Section C1 while those from Groups 5 to 8 will play in Section C2.
Sections C1 and C2 will be played on a one-round league-basis and the winner would be promoted to Section B and the bottom-placed team will be relegated to Section D. In Section B, teams play two rounds and the winner and runner-up would be promoted to Section A. The bottom two teams will be relegated to Section C. In Section A, teams will be playing two rounds with the top four teams playing a mini-league for the championship. These four teams will be carrying with them the points obtained before.
The preliminary round of the knockout will start in the last week of August while the group stage will start in the first week of October.
Dates, times and venues will be announced in the coming weeks.
