Football tournament
The SAFF Women's U-17 Tournament (Arabic: بطولة الاتحاد السعودي للناشئات) is the main competition for girls under 17 and is held annually It was created in 2023.[1]
Director of the Women's Football Department, Alia Al-Rasheed, said that this step represents a qualitative shift in women's football plans in the Kingdom, noting that the focus in the current period is on building a distinguished generation of young women and increasing the number of official matches for them, which contributes to raising the technical quality of female players.[2]
Participating teams
In the inaugural edition, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation extended participation rights to all teams with women's Under-17 teams, including three Regional Training Centers (Arabic: مراكز التدريب الإقليمية). Teams were required to register a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 40 players, with eligible player ages ranging from 12 to 17 years.[3] For the second edition, participation was restricted to clubs from the Saudi Premier League and First Division only, with a minimum of 16 players and a maximum of 30 players allowed per team.[4][5]
In the inaugural edition, participating teams were divided into groups based on their regional locations, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the knockout stage, which featured the quarterfinals, semifinals, final, and a third-place playoff.[3] In the second edition, the number of groups on the group stage was expanded from four to five, With three teams advancing from the Riyadh and Jeddah groups and two teams qualifying from the Dammam groups, accumulating a total of 14 teams in the knockout stage, which followed a straight knockout format until a champion was determined in the final.[5][6]
Match rules
In the first edition, all matches were played in two halves of 35 minutes each, using a nine-a-side (9 x 9) format.[3] This was changed to an eleven-a-side (11 x 11) format in the second edition.[5]
Results
Winners
Individual awards
See also
References
