Chelsea Foundation welcomes you to the Global Goals World Cup

Chelsea Foundation welcomes you to the Global Goals World Cup

The latest ‘Global Goals World Cup’ proved a big success in Bangkok over last weekend as more than 250 players came together to take part in the annual tournament.

Held at the Chelsea FC Foundation International Development Centre at NIST International School in Thailand for the second successive year, the tournament saw 14 women’s teams from across Asia, as well as both boys and girls from the local Bangkok community, take part in the events.

The tournament is designed to raise awareness for the 17 UN Sustainable Development goals with a specific focus on gender equality.

The eventual winners of the women’s tournament, ‘Play Onside,’ were a team made up of Burmese migrant women displaced in Thailand who live and work in Mae Sot City, located on Thai-Burmese border. The Play Onside charity was setup two years ago and their team was made up of women who had never played in a competitive tournament before but will go back to their home town and be able to serve as an inspiration to the rest of their community.

Chelsea Foundation senior international development officer Laurie Griffin said: ‘Being able to bring people together through football and provide them with positive life experiences that will help shape not only the way they view the world but also who can now serve as inspiration to the next generation is something special and I feel that it was we’ve done over the past few days.’

The youth ‘Global Goals World Cup’ was also the first of its kind anywhere in the world and Pattaya United came out as champions of the boy’s tournament beating off competition from the other 7 participating teams with the NIST Falcons winning on home soil, beating Wattana Wittaya in the finals.

Rob Mathews, football development officer for the Chelsea Foundation in Thailand added: ‘We’re extremely proud to serve and support all areas of the football community regardless of age, gender or ability and the events of the past few days have given us the opportunity to connect with over 250 players, some of whom have never played the game before.

‘As a continuation of the weekend’s events we are opening a girls development centre programme to add to the already thriving boys teams where over 100 players currently train and compete in the CFC Youth Development League every Saturday here at NIST International School.’