Youth FA competitions to resume on November 21 and 22

The Youth FA leagues will continue on November 21 and 22 with the final matches from the preliminary group stages of the competition.

The local governing body of football was forced to stop its competitions on October 15 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Thursday, the Youth FA Council met to discuss the matter and tabled a number of proposals so that the competitions could resume when domestic football returns next weekend.

“After the Youth FA Executive Committee, we would like to inform you that the YFA competition will return on the weekend of November 21 and 22 with the matches that were originally scheduled for October 17 and 18.

“Therefore, these matches will bring to an end the group stages of the competitions, albeit deciders will be neeeded.”

The Youth FA said that if a team had eight players or more on a mandatory quarantine or who have tested positive for COVID-19 have every right to have their next match postponed.

“This rule is applicable only to players and not for coaches and team delegates,” the Youth FA emphasised.

“Every team who have such cases must present a medical certificate 48 hours prior to the match that confirms that players are in quarantine or have tested positive for the virus.

“This clause is applicable for the league championship only and not for the group stage when in that case a match will be delcared walk-over.”

The Youth FA said that the continuation of the championship will bring with it a change in format for the competition.

Section A of the U-15 and U-17 championship will be formed by eight teams and will be played over two rounds.

On the other hand, Section B and C of both the U-15 and U-17 leagues will also be held between eight teams.

Here after the first round, the league standings will be split into two sections with the top four teams playing against each other once, with the bottom four teams also facing each other once.

The Youth FA Council made it clear that if the championship will again be forced to stop, they retain the right to amend the championship format again, according to the circumstances.

“The Youth FA hopes that everyone involve will continue to follow the protocol and the official guidelines and that everyone respects the basic principles of prevention to ensure we have the least number of stoppages as possible,” the Youth FA concluded.