The final phase of the Youth U-18 Kabaddi Championship (Boys and Girls) is set to get underway on Saturday at the Palton ground, adjacent to Bangabandhu National Stadium, with 16 zonal champions and runners-up taking part in the four-day meet.

With the youth festival's slogan -- Let Change the Country, Change the World Youth Festival -- 525 teams, including 198 women's teams from 339 upazilas of 61 districts, took part in the zonal phase after being divided into eight zones: Modhumati, Tista, Dhansiri, Brahmanputra, Rupsa, Surma, Padma and Karnofully.

Each participating team in the final phase consists of the best players from the zonal phases, and 50 players each (male and female) will be selected from the final phase to receive improved training.

"Our aim has been to identify players from the youth kabaddi championship, where we found 7,000 players. Now, we are looking forward to selecting 50 players each from the men's and women's sections because we are planning to develop them under the guidance of a foreign coach," said Bangladesh Kabaddi Federation general secretary SM Newaz Shohag at a press conference at the BOA auditorium on Wednesday.

"You need two things to win a medal -- money and incentive training -- and the current ad-hoc committee is working on this because we want to regain the medals we lost in various Games. I think that is the main challenge for this committee."