Gateway beat Visakha and Sirimavo to win the Colombo Zone Football Championship

The winning team

Gateway girls won the Under-20 Colombo Zonal Football Tournament organised by the Zonal Education Department of Colombo, while Gateway’s Under-17 team emerged as the runner-up.

In the Under-20 category, Gateway beat Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya 3-0 in the final. They had stiff resistance in the semi-finals from Visakha Vidyalaya, whom they beat 5-4 on penalties.

In the Under-17 category, Gateway overcame St. Paul’s Milagiriya 5-3 in the semi-final but lost to Visakha Vidyalaya on penalties in the final. Both the Gateway and Visakha teams have qualified for the Western Province tournament, which will be played shortly.

With two of its players – Maleeka Amith and Vinuki Samarasinghe – representing Sri Lanka, football at Gateway has reached a new level. Amith represented Sri Lanka at the South Asian Under-19 tournament as the Vice-Captain of the team in 2021. Both Amith and Samarasinghe represented Sri Lanka at the South Asian Under-16 tournament in 2018.

More recently, Gateway’s Samunu Kaggodaarachchi was selected for the Under-20 Sri Lankan National Football Squad. He toured India to play in the SAFF U-20 Championship where Sri Lanka played Bangladesh, Nepal, India and the Maldives. Kaggodaarachchi was not only the first Gateway student to represent the Sri Lankan National men’s team in football, but was also the first international school student to represent his country in football.