Twenty-six teams will be competing for the prestigious Vodafone Cup competition which starts on Saturday.

This is an increase from the usual 15 teams that competes in the Premier Division.

Fiji National Rugby League interim chief executive Don Natabe says due to the increase in the number of teams, the format played has been changed.

This means there will be no more qualifying rounds this year which sees teams qualifying directly from their pools to the grand-final stages.

“Due to the increase in teams, we’ve changed the format a little bit more to suit the number of teams that we have. We had a qualifying round from each of the conferences from east and west but this year, teams will qualify directly from their pool groups into the grand-final series.”

The competition will be played on a round-robin basis seeing 94 matches played across the three conferences including Nasinu, Suva and Nadi/Lautoka division.

The Nadi/Lautoka conference opens the Vodafone Cup on Saturday at Prince Charles Park in Nadi.