Deputy managing director of Ascent, Madiha Murshed (2nd-L), and the chief executive of the event management company Excalibur Entertainment, Farhan Quddus (2nd-R), are seen during a press conference at a city hotel on Thursday. — New Age photo

The Ascent Corporate Soccer Cup 2012, a 5-a-side indoor football tournament, participated by teams from country’s renowned corporate houses, began on Friday at the STM Hall of Scholastica School in Uttara.
A record-breaking 51 teams from as many corporate houses are participating in the competition, which is being held every year since 2006.
This is the fifth consecutive year that Ascent Group is hosting and sponsoring the tournament that is organised by the event management company, Excalibur Entertainment.
New Age is the media partner of what can be easily called the biggest sporting event for corporate houses while Dell, Bangla Vision, Pepsi, Arkay Multimedia, Radio Foorti, Qubee and Monowara Hospital are the other partners.
The participating teams have been divided into 17 groups with each containing three corporate houses. Each group champions will play in the Cup while the runners-up team will play in the Plate.  The team that will finish third will play in Bowl groups.
Teams in Cup, Plate and Bowl phase will be divided into four groups further and group champions will play in the semi-finals in their respective segments.
The duration of each game, which will follow the rules of futsal, will be 20 minutes.
A total of 24 matches were held on the opening day.
The draw of the tournament was held on Thursday at a city hotel where among others Madiha Murshed, deputy managing director of Ascent and Farhan Quddus, chief executive of the event management company Excalibur Entertainment were present.