Shakhtar organise beach soccer festival

On July 28, on the Ukrainian Super Cup matchday, Shakhtar Social organised a Come On, Let’s Play! beach soccer festival in Odessa.

The football ground was set up on the Big Fountain station 14 beach. From 9 a.m to 16 p.m, all children could play, test themselves in football contests (playing keepie-uppie, various relay races) and get some memorable souvenirs and positive emotions. A total of about 200 children took part in the Come On, Let’s Play! festival. During the day, they played about 70 short games.

“They still don’t have a Come On, Let’s Play! ground in Odessa, so we introduced the kids to our project in this unusual way”, said Inna Khmyzova, the Shakhtar Social director. “There are no losers or winners in this event. It’s important for us that all children enjoy it and play football in the future.”

COME ON LET’S PLAY!

FC Shakhtar Donetsk have been running the “Come On, Let’s play!” project since 2013. The project is aimed at the development of grassroots football and its popularisation throughout Ukraine. Today the project includes 43 grounds in 23 locations in Ukraine. Free sessions for children aged 7 to 12 years old are conducted by qualified volunteer coaches three times a week. All the participants are provided with balls and necessary equipment.

Since 2017, the final tournament “Come On, Let’s Play!” conducted usually once a year in May at the venue of FC Shakhtar Academy for the best teams from each location. The final tournament was held in Shchaslyve for the third season in a row with this year Under 10s teams represented by one hundred kids from Donetsk, Mariupol, Lviv, Kurakhove, Chervonohrad, Kramatorsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Severodonetsk, Bilozerske, and Zelenodolsk.

Take a look at the photos from this fun day below.