CONCACAF will celebrate its second annual Women’s Football Day on Saturday, May 21, 2016 and League1 Ontario will be taking part in the festivities.
Building on the success of the inaugural women’s day held in 2015, in which 38 of the 41 member associations within the Confederation united to create a significant opportunity for girls and women to play the game, this year’s one-day event will provide an even stronger platform to raise awareness for women’s growing participation in soccer.
CONCACAF has created the Women’s Football Day as a unique initiative to encourage greater participation from women of all ages in the game, while showing how sport can have a positive impact on education, health, and development. There is an enormous growth potential within the region and a need to continue demonstrating that the sport offers significant opportunities to empower women beyond the pitch.
League1 Ontario, the province's Pro-Am league, will host activities throughout the day at the Ontario Soccer Centre Stadium, which will culminate in the evening with a women's game between rivals Vaughan Azzurri and Woodbridge Strikers.
"We're very proud to have been asked by Canada Soccer to take part in the CONCACAF Women's Football Day," League1 Ontario Commissioner, Dino Rossi said. "As the leading women's league in Canada we'll get to showcase some of the great talent that is coming out of League1 and what better way to do that than in true derby fashion. Woodbridge and Vaughan have a great rivalry and it should bring some extra excitement to the day."
Things will be get underway at 1 p.m. with a game between the League1 Ontario men's teams Vaughan and Woodbridge.
Following the game, there will be a Grassroots Festival put on by the York Region Soccer Association (YRSA).
And the day will conclude with the Women's game between Vaughan and Woodbridge, which will kick off at 5:30 p.m.
Tickets for the doubleheader are only $5 and can be purchased at the stadium.
Any youth soccer player, affiliated to a YRSA club who is under the age of 18 and who comes to the match dressed in their club gear, will get into the stadium at no charge.
If you can't be in attendance for Women's Football Day, both games will be broadcast through the League1 Ontario Livestream channel.
Click here for more on CONCACAF Women's Football Day.