MANDEVILLE, Manchester — There will be an additional round of matches in the ISSA/LIME daCosta Cup schoolboys’ football competition when the 2014 season kicks off on September 6 at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.

Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), the organisers of high school sports in the island, has tweaked the format of the 64-year-old competition, which they hope will give more teams a chance at the lucrative quarter-finals, it was announced at the annual daCosta Cup planning meeting held at Manchester High on Wednesday.

This coming season, the top-two teams from each of the eight Inter-Zone round groups will advance to a round of 16. Up to last season, only the top-eight teams, the winners of each of the eight Inter-zone groups, would qualify for the next round.

George Forbes, ISSA’s competitions secretary, who made the announcement at the meeting, pointed out that the number of teams qualifying for the Ben Francis Knockout would be drastically reduced from 12 to four — the semi-finalists from the daCosta Cup.

It was explained that given the number of games that the teams would be playing in addition to the new ISSA/LIME Super Cup, there would not be enough time in the season to accommodate all

the games.

Starting this year, the top-eight teams in both the daCosta Cup and Manning Cup competitions will meet in a national competition that offers the winners $1 million.

Up to Wednesday’s meeting, 75 schools — led by defending champions St Elizabeth Technical High — had shown interest in taking part in the daCosta Cup and have been separated into 15 zones.

The top-two teams from each zone, plus the next two best finishers will advance to the Inter-zone round where they will play in eight groups of four teams each.

The winners and runners-up from the eight groups will then advance to the round of 16 where they will play in four groups of four teams each with just the winners advancing to the semi-finals.