PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Sept 20 : Jamshedpur Sporting Association (JSA) is celebrating its Platinum Jubilee marking 75 years of Jamshedpur’s sporting legacy.
The JSA was started in 1945 with three sporting disciplines football, hockey and volleyball.
It initially started with a football tournament which has grown into a much larger ecosystem with 44 teams participating in three levels, Premier division, Super Division and A Division with 150 games being played in the league.
The JSA football league has its share of legacy as one of the oldest tournaments in the eastern region after Kolkata.
JSA has been supported by Tata Steel and has a huge community connect with all players are from local community, with majority of them tribal participants.
The tournament enjoys not just good participation but also a very good local fan following, where there thousands of audiences attend the games in the final stages of the league.
The craze of football has grown exponentially in last four years. Notably, for the two spots in Super Division, there were 30 teams competing for the same in the qualifying rounds.
JSA’s volleyball and hockey tournaments have eight teams participating in each discipline, while two years ago in 2019, women’s football league was started.
In the same year for the first time JSA had qualified women referee officiating league games, setting a very inclusive and progressive example.
JSA also has produced FIFA referees, national level match commissioner, referee assessors and officials affiliated to AIFF.
While Tata Steel hosts the tournament, the local affiliated clubs who have been in existence since inception of JSA have also played a big role in sustaining the league and share the legacy and success of JSA’s long standing league.
Many of the JSA club owners and office bearers are on the JSA committee and have been helping in the conduct of the tournaments.
A new logo of JSA was also unveiled to mark the Platinum Jubilee.
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