A warm welcome to Cork City FC!

A warm welcome to Cork City FC!

EFDN are happy to announce Irish side Cork City FC as a new member to their network.
The club hopes to benefit of the support and experience of EFDN and its members and use the knowledge to broaden the horizons of their own CSR programmes and promote Cork City as the focal point for football within the community.

Cork City FC was founded and elected to the League of Ireland in 1984. They became three times champions of the Republic of Ireland, last time in 2017 when they won the ‘Double’. After their relegation in 2020 CCFC is currently competing in the League of Ireland First Division. The club won also the Women’s FAI Cup in 2017 and the Amputees National League in 2018.

The club – located in the south-west of Ireland – is entirely owned and operated by the Friends of the Rebel Army Society (FORAS) supporters trust. Supporters and friends of Cork City FC can purchase a share in the trust. Today the trust is run by a Board of Management, which is elected from its membership. New trustees join the Board each year and the group works closely with the club’s staff to ensure that daily operations abide by the core tenants of sustainability, community and volunteerism.

One of the aims of the society is to develop and promote the educational, health, social and personal development benefits of football in the wider community by encouraging participation in local football and promoting Cork City Football Club as the focal point for football within the community.

Erika Ni Thuama, Community and Academy coordinator at Cork City FC explains why the club joins EFDN. “We are a small organisation with limited resources, I feel the support of a wider network would be of huge benefit to our CSR programmes. The recent convention was the perfect example of this as we took a lot of information and ideas from listening to member clubs speaking about their activities.”

“We partner with a number of local charities to use our brand and, where possible, our training ground to help their needs. For example, this week we are partnering with Focus Ireland to run a simulated sleep out to raise funds for homeless services in Cork. Pre-covid, this sleep out would have been held at our training ground. We’ve also in the last few months run a ‘Winter Warmth’ appeal where we collected unwanted blankets for another homeless service.”

“Pre-covid we regularly visited local schools running a ‘Football Numeracy’ programme as well as delivering coaching sessions. These in-person sessions are currently on hold but have been replaced by online sessions with youth groups.”

Find here the member page of Cork City FC