2025 IFA Shield
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Dates | 8–18 October |
| Teams | 6 |
The 2025 IFA Shield will be the 125th edition of the IFA Shield hosted by the Indian Football Association. The tournament was planned to held in March of 2025 but was pushed to October due to clash of fixtures from I-League and Indian Super League.
The tournament will feature domestic teams from the Indian Super League and I-League. At first, international invitees like Paro FC (Bhutan) were invited but later the plan was withdrawn.[1][2][3]
Teams
[edit]Here is the list of confirmed teams:[4]
| Club | Location | |
|---|---|---|
| Indian Super League teams | ||
| East Bengal | Kolkata, West Bengal | |
| Mohun Bagan | ||
| I-League teams | ||
| Gokulam Kerala | Kozhikode, Kerala | |
| Namdhari | Sri Bhaini Sahib, Punjab | |
| I-League 2 teams | ||
| United SC | Kalyani, West Bengal | |
| Domestic teams | ||
| Young Men's Kerala 1899 | Ponpally, Kerala | |
Format
[edit]6 teams will be divided into two groups of 3 teams. After a group stage consisting of single round-robin matches, top two teams from each group will qualify for semi-finals. Subsequently, winners of semi-finals to play in final to determine the shield winner.
Rules
[edit]- Each team can register 6 foreign players.[4]
- 4 foreign players can play on the field at a time, and 2 can be used as substitutes.
Tiebreakers
[edit]Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.
- Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
- Goal difference in all group matches;
- Goals scored in all group matches;
- Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
- Drawing of lots.
Venues
[edit]- Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Salt Lake City
- Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Santoshpur
- Bankimanjali Stadium, Naihati
- Kalyani Stadium, Kalyani
Group stage
[edit]Group A
[edit]
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Advance to the Semi-finals |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
Group B
[edit]
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Advance to the Semi-finals |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
Knockout stage
[edit]| Semifinals | Final | ||||||||
| A1 | |||||||||
| B2 | |||||||||
| SFW1 | |||||||||
| SFW2 | |||||||||
| B1 | |||||||||
| A2 | |||||||||
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Paro FC. "𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 We are proud to announce our official confirmation to participate in the prestigious 𝑰𝑭𝑨 𝑺𝒉𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅, taking place from 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉 12 𝒕𝒐 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉 25, 2025". Facebook.
- ^ "Kanchenjunga Stadium uncertain for the IFA Shield; Bhutan's Paro FC confirms participation". Parallel Sports Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
- ^ "আইএফএ শিল্ডে অংশ নিচ্ছে ভুটান লিগ চ্যাম্পিয়ন, অনিশ্চিত বাংলাদেশী ক্লাব" (in Bengali). Retrieved 2025-02-17.
- ^ a b "আইএফএ শিল্ডে খেলবে কেরলের দলও, কটা বিদেশি খেলাতে পারবে টিমগুলো?". Sangbad Pratidin (in Bengali). Retrieved 2025-09-22.