THIRSTY ADDS AMPUTEE FOOTBALL
Cebu’s grandest football festival to include football match for the first time
The usual fanfare, the festive vibe and the droves of football players of all ages will flock to the pitch and the grandstand of the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC) for Cebu’s grandest annual football festival, the Thirsty Football Cup, on Feb. 22 to 24.
Aside from having more teams this year, the football festival’s 16th edition features an exhibition match that will be the event’s highlight: a 15-minute exhibition match between the all-amputee squad of the Amputee Soccer Philippines, which is supported by the Philippine Accessible Disability Services Inc. (Pads), against the Velez College football team.
“This is our pioneering activity,” said Pads’s Christine “Tynee” Cabahug-Ruedas.
Amputee-football was just recently introduced by Pads here in Cebu City and will be one of their sports programs. The goal of Pads is to form a world-class amputee-football team that will compete in the world meet.
“We really hope (to be part of Thirsty yearly). We are also sourcing from outside of Cebu for players. We’ll bring them here.”
Pages Holding Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bunny Pages wants the amputee-football team to be part of the annual tournament and even asked the tournament managers to stop all the other matches so that the audience can focus on the exhibition match.
“This could be part of our yearly tournament,” he said.
The exhibition will be on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 24. The time will be announced later on.
“We have a very large number of participants, much more than last year,” said John Pages, Pages Holdings Inc. vice president. “If you look at the composition, again a big percentage come from outside of Cebu. The event has really reached out to a lot of schools, football clubs, organizations and they really look forward to the Thirsty Cup as one of the major events.”
The total number of teams this year is 281, 47 more than last year. They will be competing in the 14 different divisions.
Aside from the local clubs and school-based teams, there will be visiting squads from San Carlos City, Bohol, Dipolog, Bacolod, Roxas, Barili, Maguindanao, Maasin City, Himamaylan, Victorias City, San Juan, Davao, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Iligan City, Tacloban City, Borongan, Camotes, Baybay, Surigao and Northern Samar.
The event also has its annual photo contest for professionals, amateurs and media photographers. A total of P24,500 worth of cash prizes will be awarded to the winners. /