Up to 300 of the most talented junior footballers in the country are set to descend upon Devonport this weekend with the 2017 National SAP festival to be staged at Valley Road.
The event, which will showcase some of the best under 12 players in the country, will feature 18 teams from around Australia in three days of nonstop footballing action taking place from Friday 3 March to Sunday 5 March.
Seven Tasmanian sides will be competing (Devonport Strikers, Glenorchy Knights, Kingborough Lions, Northern Rangers, Olympia Warriors, Riverside Olympic and South Hobart) as well as 11 teams from elsewhere around Australia. Five South Australian sides have made the trip, two Perth sides, two Newcastle sides and two from the Northern Territory.
The two Perth and Newcastle sides are affiliated with their respective A-League sides, Perth Glory and Newcastle Jets who run academies in their respective regions. Each of the competing sides will play two games a day for six in total over the course of the festival.
With such a wealth of talented youngsters on display, the festival is sure to attract the attention of A-League talent scouts who will be looking to identify future stars of the game in Australia.
Football Federation CEO Mike Palmer said he was thrilled about the prospect of Devonport once again staging the event.
"We are delighted to be staging this event in Devonport once more. The National SAP Festival is the product of a fantastic working partnership with the City of Devonport and the Devoport Strikers which continues to go from strength to strength."
He singled it out as one the best events run by Football Federation Tasmania over the course of a season and spoke to the benefits it helped provide.
"Hosting the National SAP festival is one of the best things that we as a federation do. It's a fantastic event that brings with it a wealth of benefits. It helps put Tasmania on the national stage both from a football perspective and an organizational perspective. It helps demonstrate our capacity around development and is a great event to showcase the future stars of the game in Tasmania."
The festival begins on Friday morning at 11am with the home town Devonport Strikers first up in action against a South Australian side. Three 8 a side games will be running simultaneously from 11am to 5pm daily, for a total of 54 games over the course of the weekend.