Homelessness and football

Except for a front page article in a popular broadsheet two Sundays ago, not much was written about the successful Philippine participation in The Homeless World Cup, an international football tournament where teams made up homeless people compete. The competition draws people’s attention to the serious problem of homelessness all over the world.

The unique tournament had its eighth championship at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from September 19-26. The Philippine team, which participated in the Cup for the third time, captured the Host Cup, one of seven additional cups awarded during the tournament. The Philippine team included Hammid Passion, Michael Quinlat, Abdula Passion, Revec Lagarto, Leopoldo Aragon, Lexter Maravilla, Tony Mark Arinal and Mark Maravilla.

While none of these names have become household names, the people who own these names had one thing in common: the burning desire to overcome poverty through football. 

According to the website of the Homeless World Cup, www.homelessworldcup.org, two thirds of players at the Cup change their lives. With courage and determination, they come off drugs and alcohol, tackle poverty to get into homes, jobs, training, education, repair relationships with their family and friends.

Since the Cup began in 2003 in Graz, Austria, the Cup has inspired football programs in over 78 nations with 40,000 homeless players training each year.

Leaders of note all over the world have expressed admiration at and elation over the tournament which is played four to a side and over 14 minutes, seven per half with one minute break between halves. Teams play every day throughout the tournament week with six trophies at stake and can be all male or all female or mixed (another example of mixed-gender sports). Players must be at least 16 years old and have not taken part in previous Homeless World Cups.

Other mandatory criteria include, among others: have been homeless at some point after August 1, 2009, in accordance with the national definition of homelessness; main living income is made off the streets and currently in drug or alcohol rehabilitation and also have been homeless at some point in the past two years (post August 1, 2008).

Being an inclusive tournament, it is expected that each player will play a reasonable amount of time each day. If teams are found not giving players this opportunity, they will be warned. If teams persist in not using the full squad of eight players, they will be penalized accordingly at the discretion of the Sports Committee.

Accounts on the origins of the Cup state that two executives of two street papers, Mel Young of The Big Issue of Scotland and Harald Schmied of Megaphon of Austria, met in the latter part of 2001 and came up with the idea for the Homeless World Cup. They were searching for an activity that would unite the homeless of the world and they realized that football would be the best way to do it.

Graz, Austria hosted the first Homeless World Cup with Austria winning the championship. England, the Netherlands and Brazil finished second, third and fourth, respectively. Eighteen teams took part.

The second Cup in 2004 took place in Gothenburg, Sweden. From 18 teams in 2003, the number of teams rose to 29. Italy won the championship from defending champion Austria, 4-0.

The BBC New Online, through news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_newsid reports that the 2005 Homeless World Cup took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, from July 20-24 and Italy managed to defend its title. The initial host city, New York, had to back out because of issues in obtaining visas for the homeless players. Thirty-two teams and 250 players were due to participate in the event but five African teams were refused entry to the United Kingdom, leaving 27 nations to compete.

Additional reports state that one year after the 2005 Cup, 77 percent of players have significantly changed their lives forever moving into jobs, education and training, coming off drugs and alcohol and finding homes and renewing relationships with their families.

The host city in 2006 was Cape Town, South Africa. Website Kickingitthefilm.com reports that the 2006 Homeless World Cup was the subject of a documentary entitled Kicking It directed by Susan Koch and Jeff Warner. The documentary focused on the experiences of seven homeless people at the Cup.                                             

Copenhagen, Denmark hosted the 2007 Cup, followed by Melbourne in 2008 and Milan, Italy in 2009.

The success of previous tournaments has ensured the hosting by the following cities, according to the Cup website, of the 2011, 2012 and the 2013 Homeless Cups: Paris; Mexico City and Poznan, Poland.

The continuing and inspiring saga of the Homeless World Cup proves once again the universality of sport and its ability to help promote noteworthy advocacies, from the environment to good governance.