A coach & friend told me that, growing up, soccer was his church. I knew what he meant, though I suspect he might get in a bit of hot water repeating that to his priest.
Imagine, though, aside from a church, if you did not even have a home as is the case for too many people. There are one billion homeless people living in our world today.
The Homeless World Cup would like to end that sad state of affairs and help the homeless pull themselves up by their bootstraps using soccer as a catalyst. They bring homeless soccer players together in an annual, international football tournament, the Homeless World Cup (HWC).
2009 Homeless World Cup T-Shirt
Eric Cantona, Didier Drogba, Rio Ferdinand, UEFA, Nike, UN, Manchester United, and Real Madrid are big supporters of the HWC, are you? I am a big fan of this as well, and I will be sporting my awesome HWC t-shirt proudly around the pitch. You should get one.
And you might want to know how your country did in the competition.
For the people involved this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country and change their lives.
Grass roots football projects in over 60 nations leverage the soccer passion behind this program to help over 25,000 homeless and excluded people work to recover their lives. 73% of the players involved change their lives for the better by such postive change as coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, education, homes, training, reuniting with families and even going on to become players and coaches for pro or semi-pro football teams.
Good stuff!
Teams competing in Milan 2009 Homeless World Cup
Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Cambodia Canada Chile Costa Rica Croatia Czech Republic Denmark England Finland France Germany Ghana Greece Hong Kong Hungary India Ireland Italy Ivory Coast Japan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Lithuania Luxembourg Malawi Mexico Namibia Netherlands Nigeria Norway Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Scotland South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Ukraine USA Wales
Just a heads up, Ireland beat Germany 12-0 in the group stages, I love that one!! Finished 5th overall so that wasn’t too bad! Hopefully the national team can beat the Italians later this year by the same score.