The deadline has been set for founder members to sign up for the first intake of The Big Goal, the Giacom sponsored industry initiative aiming to help homeless and disadvantaged young people in the UK.
Extra time is ticking away, and the final whistle will blow on January 15th, so there’s only a few days left for your company to sign up for the programme’s inaugural tournament and secure sponsorship of a Street Soccer Foundation academy in your area.
So, what would participation in The Big Goal mean to your business? Firstly, it will give your team members the chance to play in a high quality five-a-side football tournament with regional heats taking place at football league venues in the north and south.
The finals will be staged at St George’s Park – the home of England Football next summer. More importantly, your company’s entry fee will fund a Street Soccer Foundation Academy (SSF) in your area. This means you could ‘adopt’ a group of 10 to 15 young people facing homelessness or an uncertain future. This will help them improve their physical and mental health and build and achieve their life goals.
Through the contacts the SSF enjoys with leading clubs across the country, companies can link up with the charity foundations of senior clubs in the football pyramid. As one example, founder member Welcomm Communications will be running an academy in association with the Leicester City Foundation. “This is a great initiative for us as we’ll be helping disadvantaged young people in our area and the hook up with the Leicester City Foundation creates a wonderful profile for our commitment,” said CEO Aidan Piper.
Giacom sponsored academies are already up and running via the Tigers Trust (Hull City) and Foundation 92 (Salford City) and young people participating have already benefited from being part of a team by playing in the Football for Good tournament staged at the London Stadium last month.
“This was an incredible day for the teams,” said Neil Cavill, Head of Projects at Giacom. “Some of these young people have never been out of their home city and to play football at such an iconic venue was an experience they will never forget.”
Thirty-seven teams from 26 ICT companies have now signed up for The Big Goal, namely: Giacom, TalkTalk, Daisy Communications, Daisy Corporate Services, Vapour Cloud, Ocean Telecom, Fifteen Group, Rydal Group, Jola, NT Voice & Data, Intec, Focus Group, Gamma, Global 4, Inform Billing, Spectrum/Lantern Tech, BDR Group, OneCom, Wavenet, Sky Business, Zen Zero, Dataquest, Elite Group, Welcomm Communications, Virgin Media and CityFibre.
To become a Founding Member before the January 15th deadline, sign up here: www.thebiggoal.co.uk.