Football club AS Saint-Gilles has organised a tournament in memory of Enzo, the seven-year-old child who died last month after being hit by a bus at Porte de Hal.
Enzo was struck by a TEC bus while he was walking home with his aunt and two cousins at the intersection of Avenue de la Porte de Hal and Rue d'Angleterre.
The boy was transferred to hospital, where doctors were forced to amputate his leg in an attempt to save him. He later died from his injuries.
The 'Enzo Cup', which will involve a maximum of 24 six-person teams, was set up by the local grassroots club in his memory. The event will take place at the Complexe Joseph Bens in Uccle on 31 May, kicking off at 9am.
The entrance fee for the tournament is €60, with the entirety of the proceeds going towards supporting Enzo's family. The event was initially capped at 18 teams, before the club announced an expansion last Friday after all 18 spots were taken. The initiative has so far raised over €1,000.
Credit: AS Saint-Gilles
"Beyond the tournament, it will be a day to come together, share experiences, and keep Enzo’s memory alive through our common passion," the club wrote in an announcement on Facebook.
Ricardo Lopes, a co-founder of AS Saint-Gilles, explained to SudInfo that the tournament was set up in order to help Enzo's parents with administrative and legal costs. "As a father, it directly affected me. It could easily have been our child," he said.
It was the mother of a boy playing at the club, whose younger sister was in Enzo's class at school, who initially approached the club with the idea of raising money. “We didn’t want it to look like a publicity stunt. We asked the family for their consent first. The aim was simply to help,” Lopes went on.
The plan, he added, is for the 'Enzo Cup' to become a yearly event, pending approval from Enzo's parents.
