July 10 – New York hosts the US Women’s Victory parade today. On Sunday it hosts a very different football event when Manhattan’s Times Square will be the venue for Street Soccer USA’s four-a-side tournament.
This will be the third annual Times Square Cup hosted by Street Soccer, a non-profit organisation that uses the game to promote social change and help at-risk youth and homeless adults.
The Times Square Cup is competed for by 32 mixed sex teams with players coming from the US, Mexico and Canada. The tournament also has eight youth teams from Street Soccer programmes from around the US.
Organisers expect more than 125,000 people will attend the event over the day, which is played on two specially build hard courts. It is the only team sports event that is hosted in Times Square.
Money raised will go to Street Soccer adult and youth programmes in New York. It is reckoned that there are about 58,000 people in New York in homeless shelters, 22,000 of these are children. Across the US there is a general rise in homelessness.
Played as past of the Street Soccer USA Cup Series, the next event is Civic Centre, San Francisco, August 14-16.
Street Soccer runs programmes in 16 cities across the US with the aim of improve community health, education, and employment outcomes for more that tens of thousands of the most disadvantage youth and young adults in the United States.
Key to their work is the development or more urban soccer pitches in underserved communities. Their work is funded by sponsors and donations.
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