Thousands of people from across the Northern Ireland football family today helped launch the Irish FA Foundation, the association’s new charitable arm.
The work of the foundation including Disability Football, Powerchair Football, Girls’ Football, Boys’ Small-Sided Games and The Back in the Game programme were showcased as part of a family fun day at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park.
The new Irish FA Foundation is central to the association’s mission to help promote, foster and develop football for all in Northern Ireland. It will also help drive participation as part of the Irish FA’s youth strategy ‘Let them Play’.
Chairman of the Irish FA Foundation board, Jim Shaw, said:
“For the past 137 years, the Irish Football Association has organised, promoted and developed football. It has discovered some of the greatest talents to ever play the game, helped make history in major tournaments on the world stage and perhaps most important of all, engendered a life-long love of football in generations of men and women.
“Today’s launch of the new Irish FA Foundation is a major development in the long and famous history of the Irish FA and will further equip the association to foster and grow the sport at all levels.”
Michael Boyd, Director of Football Development, added:
“The new Irish FA Foundation is a fantastic vehicle for us to extend our football development work and enable us to further achieve the aims set out in our ‘Let them Play’ youth strategy. We want to get more young people playing our fantastic sport and dreaming of wearing the green shirt of Northern Ireland and the new Foundation will be a brilliant way of helping us do that.”
