INAUGURATION OF FIRST TEN MINI-PITCHES

New York City Football Club, First Lady Chirlane McCray, Senior Advisor to the Mayor and Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships Gabrielle Fialkoff, and Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP, were joined by NYCFC President Jon Patricof, Head Coach Patrick Vieira, Sporting Director Claudio Reyna and players David Villa, Jack Harrison and Sean Johnson, community leaders, agency partners and philanthropic sponsors for a ribbon cutting at P.S. 083 Luis Munoz Rivera / P.S. 182 The Bilingual Bicultural School in Harlem to inaugurate the first ten new mini-soccer pitches across the City.

The event kicked off a day of soccer at new pitches in all five boroughs. These fields are the first to open as part of the New York City Soccer Initiative, launched by Mayor de Blasio in 2016, a public-private partnership to build and maintain 50 mini-soccer pitches in underserved neighborhoods across the five boroughs over the next five years, and expand afterschool programming for thousands of New York City youth.

At the ribbon cutting ceremony at P.S. 083 Luis Munoz Rivera in Harlem, New York City Football Club players joined school children from the East Harlem neighborhood for a soccer scrimmage to break in the new fields. Later in the afternoon, New York City FC and partners hosted local soccer festivals at additional New York City Soccer Initiative pitches, one in each of the five boroughs.