T&T Football Association (TTFA) and the T&T Cancer Society (TTCS) along with several sponsors will collaborate with event host Vision Forward International (VFI) in the third annual staging of the Give Breast Cancer the Boot, an all-female football tournament which will be staged at St Mary’s College Ground, Serpentine Road on Sunday, from 10 am.
In attracting partners such as Super Industrial Services (SIS) and Republic Bank, the event promises to be even better than the previous two tournaments, according to former T&T international footballer Brent Sancho, who is the founder of VFI, a women’s football team.
Given the nature of the tournament, the TTFA, which was represented at yesterday’s tournament launch by general secretary Sheldon Phillips as well as national senior men’s team coach Stephen Hart, has given its endorsement. The TTFA has even held discussions with VFI in creating a tournament of international standard in coming years, which may feature women’s teams from North and South America, as well as Europe.
Expanding from eight teams in 2011 to 12 teams this year, the competition will be held in a round-robin to knockout format, with two preliminary groups of six. Among the teams are FVI Ladies FC, Central FC and the national Under-17 women’s national team, which just days ago captured the inaugural CFU U-17 Women’s Championship, held in Haiti.
The other teams are Malick FC, UWI, UWI Alumni, La Brea, Point Fortin FC, Defence Force, Trincity, Real Dimension, Malabar FC and St Augustine. Most of the participating teams are regular participants in the local national women’s football league, known as the Women’s League Football (WoLF). According to Sancho, participants may be viewed under the watchful eyes of national team representatives scouting for talent.
Speaking at the launch, at All Out, Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, yesterday, Kimlin Harrilal, the TTCS’s education and communications officer said the event is crucial in raising awareness, not only among women in T&T, but in the general public. “This initiative, hosted strategically, I must say, during breast cancer awareness month (October), plays a crucial role not just for us at the TTCS, but for women all over T&T in increasing the public’s awareness and engaging them in a different way- in football.”
“For this initiative The TTCS is urging the public, the participants, everyone here today to go beyond participation, beyond awareness, to go beyond cheering for your favourite team, and actually get screened. That is our message for 2013. We are calling on women to scheduled your mammograms and we are calling on men to get screened for prostate cancer,” said Harrilal.
On Sunday, the TTCS will be equipped with a mobile unit for testing and the public to obtain information on breast cancer. Cancer survivors will also be present to give testimonies.