When rumours of a Scotland friendly for March 2026 started to pop up, and the talk was of things like Argentina in Qatar or Iran in Newcastle, this brought up a number of conundrums for us.
When, at last, it was announced that it would be Côte d’Ivoire v Scotland at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool, on paper it seemed like the easiest out of all the options that were rumoured.
In the past when we have played the likes of Nigeria at Fulham and Brazil at Arsenal, we have still found a worthy recipient, but the UK has a surprisingly small Côte d’Ivoire population, and finding anything in Liverpool and Manchester was proving to be hard.
Eventually, we found a more than worthy recipient, and are pleased to announce that your 110th consecutive donation will be to “Tackle Africa”.
Tackle Africa was founded in May 2002 by a group of young people from the UK who had all lived or worked in Africa at some point in their lives. They recognised the potential for football to be a means of bringing people together and providing a platform from which to convey hugely important messages about HIV and AIDS.
Through partnerships with local organisations, they train their football coaches to work with
thousands of players starting from as young as 9 years old. From small beginnings, Tackle Africa now has programmes in twelve African countries, but more so in Côte d’Ivoire, with a huge network of trained football coaches delivering messages on HIV and SRHR issues to football teams week in, and week out.
TASA are extremely delighted that our donation will be ring fenced for projects directly in Côte d’Ivoire, so we can continue our unbeaten streak of helping children in need at every Scotland away game.
While based in the south of England, Tackle Africa will be traveling to Liverpool for the match and will have some of their African based coaches with them, therefore, details of the presentation will be announced closer to the match. Watch this space!
#EveryWhereWeGo