By Sports Reporter/Doha

Qatargas and Qatar Football Association (QFA) jointly launched the third season of the Qatargas League yesterday at Sheraton Hotel, Doha.
In its third edition, the Qatargas League will witness the participation of a total of 18 teams in which 14 are reserve teams and 4 are second division teams. The league is set to kick off on Sunday and run until the end of the season.
The 2015-2016 season launch was attended by QFA secretary general Mansoor al-Ansari, QFA’s executive director of Operations (Acting) Hamad al-Kuwari and Qatargas Public Relations manager Azam Abdul Aziz al-Mannai.
Launching the third season of the league is a demonstration of the fruitful and successful cooperation between QFA and Qatargas which started in 2013.
During his speech at the launch event, al-Kuwari said: “The third season of Qatargas League is an opportunity to discover the talent of some of the players in the reserve and second division teams. We would like to extend our gratitude to Qatargas for their constant support towards QFA’s tournaments and we look forward to working with them in the coming years to build on the existing strong relationship.”
He added: “This tournament plays a very important role in the ongoing development of Qatari football and overall improvement of the technical level of the participating teams.”
Al-Mannai said: “The Qatargas League has now grown remarkably and contributed towards promoting and enhancing the game over the past two seasons, meeting our objectives in taking Qatar’s football to new heights, especially as the country is getting ready to host the World Cup in 2022. I thank the Qatar Football Association for providing us the opportunity to be part of the State of Qatar’s efforts to be one of the world’s leading sports destinations. Furthermore, we are delighted to partner with QFA to support this exciting league that brings together some of the most aspiring young footballers in Qatar.”
He noted that as the world’s premier LNG Company, Qatargas’ support to football is part of the company’ corporate social responsibility programme in the field of sports. Apart from football, Qatargas has been supporting over the past few years a number of games such as golf, badminton, chess, and ice hockey that attract many youngsters and are fast gaining popularity in Qatar.
“We are also proud to say that our CSR initiatives contribute to the human development pillar of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, which seeks to develop all its people physically and mentally to enable them to sustain a prosperous society,” he said.
The 4 second division teams for this season include Al Shamal, Al Shahania, Muaither, and Al Markhiya, and are all going to battle it out on the field for a chance to be promoted to the Qatar Stars League (QSL).   
Last year, Al Rayyan won the title while Al Shamal emerged victorious in the first edition (2013-14).