President Cup International Football Tournament opens in Ashgabat

Turkmenistan - Eight teams representing six countries take part in the traditional President Cup International Football Tournament which is due to start in Ashgabat today. Three teams of the host country and five teams from Iran, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Moldova will compete for an honorary prize in the 12th President Cup football tournament.

As the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru reports, the teams are divided into two groups. The first group consists of CSCA (Dushanbe, Tajikistan), Tractor (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Turkmen champion ITTU (Ashgabat) and Turkmen national championship bronze medal winner Nebitchi (Balkanabat). The second group is: Vorskla (Poltava, Ukraine), Perspolis-Khorasan (Meshhed, Iran), Dachiya (Kishinev, Moldova) and Turkmenistan Cup holder Merv (Mary).

The groups’ winners will play in the final. The groups’ second place winners will contest bronze medals.

The tournament prize fund totals US $ 35 thousand. The tournament winner would get the presidential cup and US $ 20 thousand. A runner up would qualify for US $ 10 thousand cash prize and a third place carries cash award of US $ 5 thousand.

All matches will be played on the artificial pitch of the Kopetdag stadium.

In the tournament’s 11-year history it was only in 1998 and 2002 that Iranian Isteglal (Tehran) and Georgia’s Torpedo (Kutaisi) won the Turkmen President Cup. Nisa Ashgabat was a four-time winner of the Cup (1999, 2003, 2004 and 2005). Kopetdag Ashgabat won the Cup two times (1995 and 2001). The combined team of Turkmen clubs held it two times (1996 and 1997) and the combined team of Ashgabat – one time (2000).