2008/9 TESCO CUP SET FOR RECORD NUMBER OF TEAMS
- new FAs set to participate as Girls' Football tournaments grow
A record number of teams are expected to take part in the 2008/9 Tesco Cup, which began in September. The tournament, which is open to community clubs nationwide, features teams from U13 Boys and U14 and U16 Girls.
The Tesco Cup is now in its fourth year and over 3,300 teams across the three age groups took part in 2007/8. Last season saw the first girls' tournaments and almost 9,000 girls played in competitive matches, a figure likely to be exceeded in 2009 as a number of county FAs will have agreed to put teams forward for the first time. Teams from Northern Ireland won the U13 Boys and U14 Girls finals, while Scotland's representatives took the U16 Girls title.
Teams in the Tesco Cup play at County, Regional or Area level to find the National Champions with the four National Winners from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland competing to become overall UK champions and lift the winners' trophies.
Jan Foster, Corporate Responsibility Manager at Tesco, said: “We created the Tesco Cup as part of a wider programme of activity to encourage young people to participate in sport. Football is hugely popular and a great way for children to keep fit. Coupled with our other sports programmes, we now believe that we have an activity for everyone”.
Rachel Pavlou, National Girls' Football Development Manager at The FA, commented: “The fact that so many girls took part last year proves football's popularity and we are delighted that Tesco is supporting the development of women's football.”
The majority of the local FAs in England, as well as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland FAs are taking part again this season and some local FAs who did not run County/Area competitions have set up leagues specifically for this competition. Last season Tesco awarded grants totalling over £175,000 to all participating County, Area and Regional FAs, to be used for the development of grassroots community football.
This website gives all the relevant tournament information including all of last season's results, how to enter and details of teams participating in each area. Clubs will also be able to track their results and submit match reports as the tournament progresses.
View video highlights of the 2007/2008 finals (opens in a new window)
View the results from the 2007/2008 competition (in PDF format)
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