Santosh Trophy to kick off Friday

New Delhi, May 10 (IANS) A total of 25 teams will take part in the 66th National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy being hosted by Odisha from Friday.

The teams have been divided into seven clusters with last year's quarter-finalists West Bengal, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, the Services, Chhattisgarh, the Railways, Tamil Nadu and hosts Odisha directly finding their place in their groups' quarterfinal rounds.

The preliminary round matches will be held May 11-16, while the quarterfinal round matches will take place from May 18 to 23.

Both the semi-finals will be held simultaneously at Cuttack (Odisha) May 25. The final will also be held in Cuttack May 28.

Four venues will hold the tournament matches.

Cluster I matches will be played in Sambhalpur; Cluster II, IV and VI in Cuttack; Cluster III in Baragarh; and Cluster V and VII in Bhubaneswar.

Cluster I: Jharkhand, Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Gujarat.

Cluster II: Kerala, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh.

Cluster III: Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Pondicherry.

Cluster IV: Jammu & Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra.

Cluster V: Karnataka, Nagaland, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh.

Cluster VI: Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Rajasthan.

Cluster VII: Haryana, Sikkim, Assam, Daman & Diu.