The first of its kind beach soccer festival in Odisha “Beach Soccer 2021” was inaugurated at Chandrabhaga Beach, Konark. The event is being organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha Tourism. Odisha Football Club (OFC) is the Technical Partner of the event.
Eminent footballers Shradhanjali Samantaray and Ranjita Mohanty were present during the inauguration ceremony along with Mr. Saikat Roy Chowdhury (Regional Director – East and North East, CII), Mr. Binaya Dash (Additional District Magistrate, Puri), CII Odisha state council members and members of Odisha FC.
This is a maiden initiative to integrate football and the mesmerizing coastline of Konark. This is a corporate beach soccer tournament in which the industry members are a part.
The major objectives of the tournament are promoting tourism, health and sports in the state, industry governement collaboration and the development of state beaches as venues for international beach soccer events.
A total of 10 teams were divided into two groups. Group A includes Odisha Tourism, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, CSM, Nalco and Tata Steel. Paradeep Phosphates Limited, Paradeep Port Trust, Odisha Power Transmission Corporation, Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) and Gupta Power were placed in Group B.
After a successful day 1 came to a close, the results for the day were announced as follows:
IOCL beat Odisha Tourism by 2-0 goals
PPT beat GPIL by 5-0 goals
NALCO beat CSM by 1-0 goal
JSPL and OPTCL 1-1 draw
TATA Steel and IOCL 1-1 draw
PPL beat GPIL by 2-1 goals
CSM beat ODISHA TOURISM by 5-0 goals
JSPL & PPT 0-0 draw
NALCO & TATA 0-0 draw
PPL beat OPTCL by 2-0 goals
IOCL beat CSM by 3-0 goals
JSPL beat GPIL by 1-0 goals
NALCO beat ODISHA TOURISM by 2-0 goals
PPT & OPTCL 1-1 draw
TATA beat CSM 1-0 by goals
JSPL beat PPL by 1-0
IOCL & NALCO 0-0 draw
17 league matches were played on the first day. 3 more league matches, playoffs and final are scheduled to be played tomorrow. Top three teams from each group will qualify for the playoffs.
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