Forty two teams from the ICT industry will be pitting their football skills against each other in the three regional finals of The Big Goal this month. Twelve teams will then qualify for The Big Goal national finals tournament to be stage at St George’s Park – the Home of England Football – later in the year.
The fees paid by teams entering the tournament will be used to fund Street Soccer Foundation Academies in their area, each helping more than 400 disadvantaged young people across the UK.
“With 32 ICT companies now supporting The Big Goal excitement is growing and momentum is building,” said Nigel Sergent, Editorial Director at Comms Dealer and a co-founder of The Big Goal initiative.
“The support The Big Goal has received from main sponsor Giacom and the Founding Members has been magnificent. There are 1,600 holes in a regulation football net and when we kicked off The Big Goal our simple aim was to prevent 1,600 young people slipping through the net into a life of homelessness and despair. To be a quarter of the way towards that target is amazing.”
The three regional finals and teams are as follows:
Southern Regionals, Brentford FC’s Community Stadium, from 12.30pm, April 12th: CityFibre, Comms Dealer, Dataquest Group, Excalibur Communications, Focus Group 2, Gamma 2, Giacom 4, Giacom 5, Global 4 Communications, Intec 2, NPS, Ocean Telecom, Platform X Communications 2, Redsquid, Sky Business 2, Vorboss and Zenzero.
Northern Regionals, Sunderland AFC’s Beacon of Light, from 9am, April 19th:
ANS Group, Daisy Corporate Services 1, Daisy Corporate Services 2, Elite Group, Firstcom Europe, Giacom 1, Giacom 2, Platform X Communications 1, Sky Business 1 and Vapour Cloud.
Midlands Regionals, Nottingham Forest’s The Forest Sports Zone, from 8.30am, April 26th: BDR Group 1, BDR Group 2, Daisy Corporate Services 3, Daisy Communications, Fifteen Group, Focus Group 1, Gamma 1, Giacom 3, Inform Billing, Intec 1, Jola, Lantern Tech, NT Voice, Rydal Group, Virgin Media, Wavenet and Welcomm.
Companies wishing to get involved in the next programme should contact Nigel Sergent: nsergent@bpl-business.com
Pictured above: Sunderland AFC’s magnificent Beacon of Light complex.