Homeless Soccer?
Are you homeless? Can you play soccer? Wellington's Downtown Community Ministry is recruiting people to compete in this year's Homeless Soccer World Cup held in Melbourne this December. No, I am not joking. I read this in the Herald last week and was stunned. First I laughed. Then I frowned. Then I told anyone who would listen to me. Because let's be frank here, have you ever heard of such a thing? Homeless. Soccer. World Cup. Standing alone, not such a big deal but in one sentence?? Really?
Naturally what ensued were terrible, terrible jokes, or commentary if you will; what will they wear? Surely they can't play soccer in rags? What about shoes? Put old/used needles at the bottom of their "shoes" (rough, I know)? What about a ball? A bag of trash? An empty blown up wine cask? And my favourite: guess there'll be no home games. But that extended further; how were these playaz going to find out about the event? It was a tiny three sentence piece in "World". Sure they use the paper for padding or sometimes even blankets, but do you think they'd read it?? But what's more, there were no contact details! No phone number or email address (not that that would be the most appropriate form of contact any-who).
I was so riveted by this event I decided to do some research and holy
guacamole!! As it turns out, this event is in its sixth year! Who
would've thought?! Not only that, but over 25,000 competitors take
part! So this isn't some game in the local park with a bottle of
Kristov, but a serious competition. I found out some pretty cool things
as well... From the past competitions 12 homeless people went on to
become semi-professional or professional footballers or coaches.
There's about 48 nations that enter and around 500 people per nation,
and the organisers hope that numbers reach 100,000 people by 2010. Nike
donates soccer boots, which is pretty rad but, hey, c'mon, specialised
footwear.... well, I'll leave that with you. The host nation builds a
special stadium on the streets with the games being played on a special
street-surfaced court, so it's not a full blown soccer grass pitch
game, if that's what you were thinking.
And what do they win you
ask? One million dollars? A CEO position? Or even just a normal job?
Nope. They get a medal, just like the Weet-Bix kids do... No the real
prize is getting the opportunity to represent their country, travel to
another nation, the chance to win trophies, but most importantly the
chance and time to really change their lives. To you and me soccer's
just about kicking a ball and scoring some points. Well for these guys
the points don't just win the game, they equate to things like pride,
self-esteem, self-worth, and the ability to really want to move forward
in life. Yeah, ok, a li'l cheesy, but C'MON! It'd suck being homeless.
Do you think as little tykes they go: "Mummy, when I grow up I wanna
live on the streets"? No. So when people do become that way it'd be
that bloody hard to get out and really better yourself. Go the
organisers and supporters of this event. Go the homeless who
participate and really try in life.
Good on ya. Chur.
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