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This article was published on Wednesday, 23 May, 2018. The information contained within may be out of date or inaccurate. News articles and media releases older than 60 days are archived for future reference.

Greater Shepparton to host Victorian Country Junior Football (Soccer) Championships

The championships will see 65 teams and over 1,000 players consisting of under 11 to 16 boys and under 12, 14 and 16 girls participate in the long weekend event from Saturday 9 June until Monday 11 June, 2018 at Shepparton Sports City.

Greater Shepparton Mayor Kim O’Keeffe said it is great so see young football players and their families visit our region from Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, Gippsland, LaTrobe Valley, Cobram, Albury, Mildura and Warrnambool as well as our home teams.

“The event gives both boys and girls a fantastic opportunity to be exposed to a higher level of competitions than their normal weekend competitions in their home towns”.

“This will be a great opportunity for our region to profile our new state-of-the-art soccer facilities at Shepparton Sports City. The championships are expected to see around 3,000 visitors and add well over $1 million to our local economy, providing a strong boost to our local businesses during a traditionally quiet time of the year” said Cr O’Keeffe.

Victorian Country Soccer League President Neville Keen said "The Country Leagues Football Association is really looking forward to bringing our major junior championship event to Shepparton in June this year. Having conducted previous championships at Shepparton we are extremely excited to be conducting these Championships at the revamped and what many people have described as some of the best facilities in regional Victoria, if not Australia".

“The tournament will bring in boys’ and girls’ teams from right across regional Victoria to compete over three days in what will be an action-packed competition and the usual rivalries between some of the regions” said Mr Keen.

Shepparton Junior Soccer Association (SJSA) President Peter Hill said “The tournament will give our local young players the opportunity to compete against teams representing regional areas from across Victoria”.

“It also helps raise the profile of our representative squad program which we hope will encourage more players to want to be involved”.

“In closing the SJSA would like to thank City of Greater Shepparton for bringing the country championships to Shepparton and also for their fantastic ongoing support of our competition,” said Mr Hill.