Bhubaneswar: The Kalinga Super Cup 2024 football tournament will start from January 9 next year, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) announced on Wednesday. The matches will be played across two different venues in the state of Odisha.
The Kalinga Super Cup, which was known as the Super Cup until last season, started in 2018 and has since firmly established itself as one of the premier club competitions in the Indian football calendar. Three editions of the Kalinga Super Cup have been held so far.
Bengaluru FC won the inaugural edition in 2018, beating East Bengal in the final while FC Goa trumped Chennaiyin FC to be crowned the 2019 Super Cup champions. After being scrapped from 2020 to 2022 due to COVID, the football competition returned in 2023 with Odisha FC emerging as the winners after defeating Bengaluru at the EMS Stadium in Kerala.
Both Indian Super League and I-League teams have been invited to take part in the annual tournament for 2024. A total of 16 teams will compete for the honours next year.
The tournament format will see the teams divided into four groups of four teams each to play single leg matches amongst themselves. The group winners will qualify for the semi-finals followed by the final, which will be played on January 28.
The I-League teams will play the qualifiers to get into the group stage of Kalinga Super Cup where four slots have been reserved for them in the group stage.
The Kalinga Super Cup 2024 champions will be nominated to play in the AFC Champions League 2 Preliminary Stage of AFC 2023-24 season.
