Zamorano, Salas for Millennium Super Soccer Cup

Chile's World Cup stars and Italian Serie league players Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas will be the prime attractions at the 16-team Millennium Super Soccer Cup 2001 tournament, to be played at three venues across the country.

Chile, Cameroon, Columbia and Yugoslavia are the main teams which will kick-off the FIFA's inaugural event, All India Football Federation president Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi announced in Delhi on Tuesday night.

Columbian stars Faustino Asprilla, Freddy Rincon and Anthony de Villa, besides Dwight Yorke of Trinidad and Tobago, are the other leading lights expected to dazzle at India's three soccer-crazy cities -- Calcutta, Cochin and Goa.

The January 10-25 event will have four groups of four teams each, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the quarter-finals.

Confirming Cameroon's participation, the country's representative Prince E N Mukete said: "We will be here for sure. We have to settle scores with Chile."

The AIFF chief, who has been caught in a piquant situation with nine top clubs forming the Indian Premier Football Association and threatening to boycott the National Football League, however, refused to talk about the composition of the Indian team.

"This is not the platform to discuss that. We will have the best possible team," Dasmunshi said, dismissing veiled threats of some clubs not to release their players for Millennium Cup either.

Dasmunshi said the draw for the tournament will be in place before Christmas as the foreign teams will have to chalk out their schedules accordingly.

There will be 32 matches including the final, with the teams in Group A and Group B playing in Cochin, Group C in Goa and Group D in Calcutta.

Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Uruguay, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Iceland, New Zealand, Uzbekistan besides hosts India are the other teams in the tournament.

Japan is the 16th team though its participation is not yet confirmed.

The AIFF has made arrangements to have a reserve team in Bosnia and Herzegovina.