The Youth League, also known as

Hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ...

Youth League for sponsorship reasons, is a system of youth

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

leagues that are managed, organised and controlled by the

All India Football Federation The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is the national governing body of football in India. It is a member of FIFA, the international governing body of football and affiliated to Asian Football Confederation. It is affiliated to Ministry o ...

. It consists of 3 age groups competitions: U17 (Elite Youth League), U15 (Junior League) and U13 (Sub-Junior League).

History

The league was founded as the I-League U19 in 2008 which was to give youth teams of the I-League a national league to play in as at that time the I-League youth teams only played in state youth leagues. Clubs fielded Under-19 teams. 16 teams were split into four groups of four with only one group containing only three teams. At the end of the season the top team from the group stage would move onto the final group stage with the other group winners and play each other once. The inaugural winners were

Tata Football Academy Tata Football Academy (Tata FA or TFA) is an association football academy situated in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India, sponsored by Tata Steel, which owns ISL outfit Jamshedpur FC. It is one of the renowned football academies in India. History ...

. The competition name was changed in 2012 to the I-League U-20, because many U-20 players in the I-League were not getting any time in the senior teams. Teams will play those within their own group twice and again the top teams will move on to the final group at the end. The U20 title however only lasted for two seasons before the All India Football Federation decided to switch the tournament back to an under-19 tournament from 2014 onwards. From 2014, the format was changed where the tournament was divided into five region based zones, namely Kolkata, Mumbai, Shillong, Goa and Rest of India. The competition once again changed in 2015–16 now played as U18 tournament. From 2017–18 season, the league was renamed as Youth League U18 and subsequently renamed to Elite League from 2018–19. Latest format change came with the introduction of Reliance Foundation Development League.

Under-17 level

The Elite Youth League or the Hero U-17 Youth Cup was previously known as I-League U18, I-League U19 and I-League U20. is the top level of youth football in India. It is contested between the under-17 sides of The

I-League The I-League (known as Hero I-League for sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp) is the second-tier men's professional football competition of the Indian football league system. It is currently contested by 12 clubs across the country with the w ...

teams,

Indian Super League The Indian Super League (ISL) is an Indian professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the Indian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Organised by the All India Football Federat ...

teams, as well as other youth teams. The most successful team currently is AIFF Elite Academy, who won three titles. Minerva Punjab are the last known champions. On 7 December 2018 AIFF decided to change its name to Hero Elite League.

Teams

The participants for the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season are:

Structure

For younger categories, in most cases teams play each other in their respective zonal groups twice – home and away. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams go through to the final phase. Those teams are divided into three groups and the group champions, along with the best second placed teams qualify for the knockout stages. For Elite League, the latest tournament took place across ten venues, with single round-robin format in the group and knockout stage. The 49 teams from 29 states and union territories are divided in ten groups. Ten group winners and six best runners-up qualify for the

knockout stage A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

Past winners

List of winners

Under-15 level

Junior League

Under-13 level

Sub-Junior League

References

External links

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Hero Elite League
{{Football in India 2011 establishments in India Sports leagues established in 2011 Youth football leagues Youth football in India Football leagues in India Sports leagues in India Professional sports leagues in India