Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) is set to introduce a brand new inter-school football tournament, Dhaka's Rising Stars 2025, which will commence at the Fortis Jalshiri ground in Purbachal on Friday.

A total of eight English-medium schools from the capital are set to take part in the competition in two separate age groups – Under-12 and Under-14.

In the U-12 section, eight teams from seven schools – International School of Dhaka, Scholastica Mirpur, Scholastica Uttara, Aga Khan Academy, Sir John Wilson School, Aurora International School and Springdale International School – will compete .

In the U-14 section, six schools -- Alfred International School, Sir John Wilson School, Aga Khan Academy, Scholastica Mirpur, International School of Dhaka and Scholastica Uttara – will compete.

In both sections, the teams will be split into two groups and the top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals.

The matches will take place on every Friday and Saturday and both finals will take place on May 9.

"This is the start of something big. Though we organise many tournaments, we wanted to do something with the strong involvement of schools. We want to hold this tournament at an international standard in terms of rules and regulations," said BFF City Inter-School Competitions Committee's chairman Sartaj Bhuiyan at a press conference today.

"We have been planning this since January and we are proud that we have successfully achieved it. We invited more schools but out of them eight have come on board due to exams," Bhuiyan said.

Sponsor Prime Bank's senior executive vice president Shaila Abedin thanked BFF for giving them the opportunity to be involved with the tournament.

Bangladesh team captain Jamal Bhuiyan said, "Hopefully, it will become a tradition. Everyone will know that the tournament is going on every year and the boys will get inspired. Thank you to all involved with the tournament because it is a big thing."

BFF vice president Fahad Karim said, "No matter where football is taking place, we want to bring it into a structure because we want to expand our football beyond the traditional tournaments. Tomorrow's [Friday's] arrangement is an example of our initiative."