A football/futsal enjoy event, dubbed the 2016 Consadole Espolada Cup, was held on 11, 13 and 14 February at Sapporo Dome.

In the 16th edition, the name of the event was switched to it with the support of the local Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo and Espolada Hokkaido last year A total of 4,122 participants from 384 different teams of 69 municipalities in Hokkaido took part in the event. The elementary school boys and girls were divided into the groups of U-6, U-8, U-10 and U-12 because a year makes bigger physical differences, while they set categories of U-15, U-18, adults, seniors, ladies, which consisted of the mothers of the participating boys teams and “challenged,” in which some of the players from the championship teams of the national disabled sports tournaments. Overall, the participants were divided into 14 different categories. The challenged category was revived for the first time in five years.

During this event with rich history, they had promoting and enlightening activities of ONE GOAL campaign, with the support from the Hokkaido football association. They distributed handbills to tell the participating players, their families and other football families about the present situations of the food for the Asian children, while they had fund-raising. Consadole's Dolekun and Espolada's Rispokun visited the ONE GOAL booth, helping to tell the food situations and the fund-raising, too.

The contribution of 9,109 yen that they collected from the fund-raising will be used to the refugee children of Syria, through World Vision Japan, an NPO which has supported the campaign in this event.

In order to inform about the undernourished children in Asia (undernourished or overnourished) and the importance of having meals every day and appreciating it, the Japan Football Association will continue the promotion and enlightenment of the ONE GOAL campaign across the nation.

Players' Comment

UCHIDA Shuto (Saihoku FC A Captain)
I'm from Wakkanai. I came here with my teammates having taken six hours after we finished the classes on the 12th and we are staying a night. I started playing football when I was in my third grade and now I'm in my sixth grade. In this event, I was able to play against so many different teams of the same age group, so it was fun. I'd heard that the Asian children had troubling for just eating on TV, but I didn't know in details. I'll start going to junior high school from April, so I would like to have more interest in things like that.