Santosh Trophy Football Tournament 2012 Kicks off in Odisha

A total of 25 teams will take part in the 66th National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy being hosted by Odisha from Friday, May 11, 2012.

The teams have been divided into seven clusters with last year's quarter-finalists West Bengal, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, the Services, Chhattisgarh, the Railways, Tamil Nadu and host Odisha directly finding their place in their groups' quarterfinal rounds.

The preliminary round matches will be held from May 11–16, while the quarterfinal round matches will take place from May 18–23.

Both the semi-finals will be held simultaneously at Cuttack (Odisha) on May 25. The final will also be held in Cuttack on May 28.

Four venues will hold the tournament matches.

Cluster I matches will be played in Sambhalpur; Cluster II, IV and VI in Cuttack; Cluster III in Baragarh; and Cluster V and VII in Bhubaneswar.

Cluster I: Jharkhand, Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Gujarat

Cluster II: Kerala, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh

Cluster III: Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Pondicherry

Cluster IV: Jammu & Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra

Cluster V: Karnataka, Nagaland, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh

Cluster VI: Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Rajasthan

Cluster VII: Haryana, Sikkim, Assam, Daman & Diu