At least 400 children have turned up for the first edition of the Uganda Youth Football Association (UYFA) U15 Academy regional championship at Soroti sports ground.

Six academies are battling for top honours at the regional championship in which one will be selected to represent the region in nationals to be hosted in Mbarara. 

According to UYFA chairperson Teso sub-region, Michael Erebu, the qualifiers have attracted 400 players and 17 team leaders. 

“Our applause is extended to the academy leaders who voluntarily made this happen. We further congratulate our sub-regional coordinators for organizing the qualifiers to their best,” noted Erebu. 

He said that after FUFA took over the U15 academy league under the upcoming new FUFA Junior league format, there was a vacuum created and UYFA had to create a forum for more players from the grassroots hence the establishment of the U15 tournament. 

“We intend to create more competitions to give the youngsters maximum exposure. The U15 tournament will also help to track players for the FUFA Junior league and we call upon the academies that qualified for the national competition to prepare their teams in time with legitimate players to ease the vetting process,” added Erebu, who confirmed that the vetting of players will run for a month between July 10 to August 10 at the regional level before the draws and arrival in Luweero in September.

After the championship the qualifying team from the region will join other respective UYFA sub-regions across the eight football regions; starting with the Western region in Kabale district and climaxing with the West Nile region qualifiers in Arua City.