16th Thirsty Cup set February 22

CEBU, Philippines — The 16th edition of the Thirsty Cup, the country’s biggest football festival in terms of clubs competing, is set to kick off on February 22 at the Cebu City Sports Center.

A record field of out-of-town entries will see action including football squads from San Carlos City, Bohol, Dipolog, Bacolod, Roxas, Maguindanao, Maasin, Himamaylan, Victorias, San Juan, Davao, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Iligan, Tacloban, Alegria, Borongan, Camotes, Baybay, Surigao and Northen Samar.

All in all, over 3,500 aspiring booters spread into 281 teams will be taking part in the three-day tournament.

“We are very happy that we lasted this long. It is good that teams, even those from outside of Cebu are looking forward to this event”, said Pages Group of Companies’ president Bunny Pages.

The festival-type event features 14 divisions to be contested from 7-under to 45-above.

The lower brackets include the under-7 and 9 and 11 being a mixed category, while all the boys division has the under-13, 15,17 and 19 plus the 40-above and men’s open.

The rest are the girls 15, 17 and under-19 divisions.

Aside from having more teams, this year’s Thirsty Cup is made extra special with the addition of the all-amputee class which is categorized as an exhibition event.

The football for differently-abled will have the Amputee Soccer Philippines alongside the Philippine Accessible Disability Services Incorporated (PADS) against the Velez Soccer Team.

Meanwhile, the event will again run a photo contest which is open to all photography enthusiasts and photojournalists from different media outfits.