About 74 affiliated Division Two clubs are expected to participate in the first edition of the Eastern Cup Competition.

In addition, 135 juvenile clubs made up of under 13 and 15 teams, would lock horns for the converted trophy in the juvenile category and six female teams, would be competing in the women division.

This was announced at the official launch of the Eastern Cup Competition by the Eastern Regional Football Association (ERFA) at Koforidua.

The Eastern Cup Competition was initiated by the Eastern Regional FA to make football clubs in the region active in the wake of the suspension of official football competitions in the country, following the expose of the Tiger Eye Investigations.

The 74 division two clubs, have been zoned into 16 of which, zone one to six has four teams each and zone seven to 16 comprise of five teams each.

The winners of the 16 zones qualify automatically to the round of 16 to engage in a knockout, the winners would then move to the quarterfinals, semifinals and ultimately to the finals, which will be played on a neutral ground.

The tournaments would reward the best player, goal king, best goalkeeper, the most promising star and medals will be presented to the winners as well as trophies.

The juvenile and the women competitions are also going to use the same format as that of division two.

Mr Linford Asamoah, Vice Chairman of the Eastern Regional Football Association, said the FA was liaising with the Normalization Committee (NC) for some form of assistance to support the participating teams.

He said, the NC has assured them of providing footballs and paying the officiating fees for the tournament, however, they were still in talks to get some funds to support the activities of the clubs.

Mr Asamoah assured the participating clubs of the FA’s preparedness to put the necessary measures in place to ensure a successful competition and indicated that, it is going to be an annual competition to engage the clubs aside the main leagues.
He said after the competition, a dinner would be held for all clubs and officials to honour deserving players and officials.