{"id":2530,"date":"2015-05-05T12:40:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foylecup.com\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2015-05-06T15:16:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T15:16:12","slug":"official-press-release-kilbane-for-foyle-cup-press-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/?p=2530","title":{"rendered":"Official Press Release: Kilbane For Foyle Cup Press Launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

KILBANE FOR\u00a0 FOYLE CUP PRESS LAUNCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wait nearly Over for 278 Teams Signed Up to Foyle Cup<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For the 278 teams signed up to this year\u2019s\u00a0 Hughes Insurance Foyle Cup, the wait to see who they meet in their sections is almost over as details have just been released that the Press Launch for the 2015 event will take place on 4th<\/sup> June, with former Republic of Ireland international and Match of the Day analyst, Kevin Kilbane the Special Guest of Honour.<\/p>\n

Tournament Chairman, in expressing his delight at securing the services of Kilbane commented,\u201d We are delighted to have the pleasure of welcoming Kevin Kilbane as our Special Guest of Honour, and I more so than most of the committee, for day and daily I am being asked when will we know who we have drawn in this year\u2019s Hughes Insurance Foyle Cup event. Last year we had the approval of\u00a0 Shay Given, Ireland\u2019s second most capped international player and this year we have Ireland\u2019s third most capped international player, Kevin Kilbane. Kevin has had a tremendous football career on the field of play having played for several English clubs, including Everton<\/a>, West Bromwich Albion<\/a>, Sunderland<\/a>, Wigan Athletic<\/a>, Hull, Huddersfield Town<\/a>, Derby County<\/a>\u00a0 and Coventry City<\/a> and since the\u00a0 end of his\u00a0 playing career, he has\u00a0 concentrated on forging a media career. He has worked as a pundit for RT\u00c9 Sport<\/a> and is now a columnist for the Irish Daily Mail<\/a> and appears on BBC Radio 5 Live<\/a>, Football Focus<\/a>, Final Score<\/a> and Match of the D<\/a>ay.<\/p>\n

It is appropriate that we should have the honour of welcoming \u00a0another Irish International player to the city this year, for the Foyle Cup has been the passport into professional football \u00a0for current Irish internationals such as Shay Given, Darron Gibson, James Mc Clean,\u00a0 Seamus Coleman, Robbie Keane, Stephen Ireland, John O\u2019Shea, Daniel Lafferty, Shane Duffy\u00a0 and Shane Ferguson.:<\/p>\n

Mr Hutton went onto to comment on the growth of the Foyle Cup event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe that this event had its humble beginnings in 1992 when we organised an 8 team, one day tournament and in 2015 we will have a 6 day festival of football with 278 teams competing. The interest in the event has been immense and this year more than any other year we have had to decline applications due to the lack of resources available to us. Hotels are reporting to me than interest in securing accommodation for the event began as early as last year\u2019s event ended and that the event will witness 100% occupancy in local hotels , B&Bs, rented accommodation,\u00a0 hostels, all over the North West region\u00a0\u00a0 Added to the number of teams competing, there is the plethora of clubs who send scouts to the event, hoping to save themselves millions of pounds. Clubs such as\u00a0 Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Sunderland, Norwich City, Sheffield Utd, Blackburn Rovers, Celtic, Hearts, Rangers, and many others,\u00a0 return to scout the event every year searching for the next Irish star.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years this event has had to fight for recognition from central government to secure funding for what is deemed by many to be the major annual event in the city and this year has been no different with the recent announcement from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board of the event receiving \u00a320,000 funding , having been initially refused funding. The event is sponsored by Hughes Insurance; Derry and Strabane District Council, Causeway Coast Council,\u00a0 Department of Culture Arts & Leisure; Department for Social Development;\u00a0 Northern Ireland Tourist Board; Seagate; PSNI; Brunswick Superbowl; E&I Engineering; and Derry Credit Union.”<\/p>\n

For more details contact Michael Hutton 02871359734 or visit website www.foylecup.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KILBANE FOR\u00a0 FOYLE CUP PRESS LAUNCH Wait nearly Over for 278 Teams Signed Up to Foyle Cup For the 278 teams signed up to this <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,55,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-slider","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kilba.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2532,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foylecup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}