The Ireland Men’s and Women’s Cerebral Palsy squads have arrived for the 2024 IFCPF World Cup in Salou, Spain. On Wednesday morning Rachel Kavanagh spoke to the Sport for Business Sport for Social Good Conference about the impact that the CP football programme and the development academy have been having.
Ireland Men are in in Group D where they will come up against Iran, Venezuela and Germany, while the Women’s Team are in a group against the USA, Denmark, Australia and Japan.
Both teams warmed up for the tournament with an International Friendly Series held at the AUL Complex, Dublin in September. The Men’s Team recorded a 3-2 win over Scotland and a 1-0 win over the USA, while the Women’s Team overcame Denmark 11-4 and lost to World No 1 USA.
Aisling Conway, Head Coach of the Women’s CP Team, said: “It wasn’t even a year ago we played our first ever international game, and now we’re heading to the World Cup. It’s great exposure for not only CP football but for women’s football in general.
“We’ve prepared right, we’ve trained well, we had a Friendly Series to build up to the tournament and we have confidence about us going out to Spain – I’m excited about the coming week.”
Mick Doyle, Head Coach of the Men’s CP Team added: “We’ve prepared very well for the World Cup and have trained every Saturday for the last three months or so. A few weeks ago we had positive results against Scotland and the USA – the Americans are ranked fourth in the world.
“The players are fit, confident and in great spirits and I’m looking forward to the opening game against Germany on Monday. It will be a case of one game at a time and we’ll see where the journey takes us.”
All games from the tournament will be live streamed on the IFCPF social media channels, with details on our Sport on TV and Streaming Page.
The Men’s tournament starts against Germany on Monday 11th and the Women’s against Denmark on Thursday
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