Kota Kinabalu: A total of 118 teams will be taking part in this year’s Borneo Cup Football Tournament scheduled to kick off on September 20 here in the State capital.
The annual event will be divided into two phases starting on September 20 until October 11 before taking a break and the second phase will begin on October 27 until November 1.
The competition venues will be at Likas Stadium, UMS Stadium, Penampang Stadium and Arena Sembulan.
Tournament director Scott Ollerenshaw said the age group categories to be staged are the girls’ Under-16, Under-14, Under-12 and the boys’ Under-10, Under-11, Under-12, Under-13, Under-14, Under-15, Under-16 and Under-18 in addition to the women’s open.
“This tournament has been a success since it was first introduced in 2008. Apart from local and the Peninsula teams, we always managed to attract foreign teams to participate as well.
“There is no exception this year as we have teams from Australia, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia.
“It is going to be a big turnout with a total of 118 teams with 22 girls’ teams, 88 boys’ teams and eight in the women’s open,” he said. Meanwhile, a fitness test for the match officials ahead of the Borneo Cup tournament was conducted by Juin Joseph, who is the state referee development official at the Likas Stadium, Friday morning.
Referee coordinator Andrew Lian Awa said all the 26 participants later attended the referee refresher course conducted by Salim Limbai.
