AFS 100th anniversary exhibition in Cidade Desportiva

The Santarém Football Association is celebrating 100 years of existence. A century of life is a long journey with many lives to count. And that is precisely what the 35 panels that make up the AFS traveling exhibition report. From its beginning, on November 19, 1924, to the current portrait of the Association, in 2024.

The AFS 100th Anniversary Exhibition will tour the 21 municipalities of the Santarém district, and the tour will begin in Abrantes, with the opening scheduled for 6:30pm next Monday, May 6th, at the Cidade Desportiva facilities. In the following weeks, in May, the exhibition will be on display in the municipalities of Mação and Sardoal.

This exhibition of the centenary Santarém Football Association records, in its 35 panels, several generations of athletes, referees and association directors, some of them with names engraved in gold letters in the Association’s annals. Suffice it to say that in these 100 years, the AFS has a total of close to 300 affiliated clubs, “many of which are unfortunately already extinct or deactivated”, as well as the lineage of 30 presidents in successive AFS Boards.

Many things have changed over a century, also in football: rules, organization, equipment, technology, even modalities have been added. However, “the Santarém Football Association has always managed to overcome adversity and grow sustainably”. Currently, it has 78 active clubs and more than 9,600 registered athletes, which makes AFS one of the most relevant Associations of the Portuguese Football Federation.