2023 SAFF U-19 Championship

The 2023 SAFF U-19 Championship was the 5th edition of the SAFF U-19 Championship, an international football competition for men's under-19 national teams organized by South Asian Football Federation (SAFF). It took place from 21–30 September 2023 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

India are the defending champions, who won their second title in 2022 by defeating Bangladesh in the final on 5 August 2022.

Venue
On 22 July 2023, SAFF announced the tournament will be held at the Dasharath Rangasala in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Teams
Sri Lanka are ineligible for participation as they are suspended by FIFA. Other six SAFF teams are eligible to participate.

Draw
The draw was held in BFF House in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 22 July 2023 at 12:00 BST (UTC+6).

Match officials

 * Referees


 * 🇲🇻 Nadheem Hussain
 * 🇮🇳 Astha Aditya Purkay
 * Sabuj Kumar Das
 * 🇵🇰 Adnan Anjum
 * Nabin Maharjan
 * Pema Tshewang


 * Assistant referees
 * 🇲🇻 Shaheem Hussain
 * Yadhav Kishan Kanaya
 * 🇮🇳 M Sawant Dipesh
 * Passang Passang
 * Sharif SM Junayed
 * 🇵🇰 Mehboob Ali

Players eligibility
Players born on or after 1 January 2005 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team has to register a squad of minimum 16 players and maximum 23 players, minimum two of whom must be goalkeepers.

Group stage
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.
 * Times listed are UTC+05:45 Nepal Standard Time (NST).
 * Tiebreakers
 * 1) Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 2) Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 3) Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 4) If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
 * 5) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 6) Goals scored in all group matches;
 * 7) Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
 * 8) Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
 * 9) Drawing of lots.

Awards
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Final standing
