Homeless World Cup

[Glenn]

From the Toronto Star today:

Players take soccer to the streets

Teams of homeless vie for World Cup

Attempt to field Canadian entry failed

NICOLAAS VAN RIJN

STAFF REPORTER

At home they don't even own a cup to drink from, yet there they are, playing in the World Cup of soccer.

This year's version, anyway.

The week-long Homeless World Cup, which ends today in Graz, Austria's second-largest city, has everything.

The same coaching that's helped put British soccer star David Beckham in the global spotlight. Sponsorship by Nike. Live broadcast coverage. Fans. A Web site (streetsoccer.org).

And, most importantly, players from 18 countries around the world.

"It's street soccer, and the competition is insane," said Nancy Roussy, an editor at Montreal's L'Itineraire street paper, which tried unsuccessfully to field a Canadian team. "It's very interesting to see how everyone has become so enthusiastic about this.

"Even the immigration inspectors worked along, because getting homeless people — some with criminal records — into foreign countries is not so easy.

Still, there is one thing missing: Money.

These players, who regularly hawk street papers, weren't lured with million-dollar paycheques or the huge sponsorship deals that await regular players. But they worked just as hard to get here.

"First, they had to create themselves legally," Roussy said in an interview. "These players had to get birth certificates and passports, things they'd never bothered with before. They had to form a goal, learn to work together as a team, plan ahead, keep schedules — all things that will help them find a job and get a life after this."

But the event does have its comic moments.

"I came because I thought it said they were going to Australia," said Jeff Rubin, a former subway motorman who signed up after seeing the event advertised on a flier at a New York City soup kitchen. "I've already been to Austria."

And listen to U.S. coach Stephanie Quinn's advice to her players: "If you drop the cigarettes, you won't be so tired."

But Marcus Stevenson, a 23-year-old on the English team, says street soccer is key in getting him back on his feet.

"It's just helped me a lot," he said. "It gave me motivation. I realized that if I could get up and go to training, I could get up and get a job or go to school."

Still, if organizers get their wish and the Homeless World Cup becomes an annual event which — just like that other World Cup — pays its way with sponsorship and broadcast fees, Rubin may just get to see a bit more of the world.

Mel Young, president of the International Network of Street Papers, which helped organize the event, said the game's a natural for the homeless.

Soccer, Young said, "is an international sport and an international language which everyone can understand. These people did not feel part of society, but here they have the feeling of inclusion."

Just ask Osvaldo Lebron, a Puerto Rican-born player who lost his job and home to drug addiction.

"This is a wonderful idea. It is an incentive to do better, to motivate oneself," said Lebron, 38.

Roussy said efforts to organize a Canadian team for this year's event fell through because of the cost — about $30,000 to field a 10-person team — and an admitted lack of interest in soccer by most Canadians.

"In Europe it's really easy to raise money because people love soccer," she said. "Here, it's not so popular."

In fact, organizers received so much co-operation in Europe that the Spanish team, organized by the Madrid street paper Milhistorias, trained with soccer club Real Madrid. And super club Manchester United trained the English team, organized by Streetleague England and the street paper Big Issue.Most of the participating teams come from Europe — Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands — but others come from as far away as Brazil and South Africa.

Russia, too, has sent a team.

"This is to show that bomzh, er, the homeless, are not always the stereotypic drunks but normal people who want to do something," said Andrei Li, who hails from Russia's far east.

Street soccer, Roussy said, has been popular among Europe's homeless street paper vendors for years. And Austria has had a national championship for several years, she noted, started after a paper distributor regularly found his homeless Nigerian vendors playing street soccer while waiting to pick up their papers.

"Soccer is a really big sport in Nigeria, and these players were really good, good enough to beat all comers," Roussy said, recalling how the distributor then talked up the series with a counterpart in Germany.

"It just took off from there."

Rules for the game, played on two squares in central Graz, are simple: Each team fields three players and a goalie, and each game lasts 14 to 30 minutes, depending on the round and the teams themselves.

Rod Goodman, a former Star ombudsman, editor and reporter who spent several years editing the now-defunct Toronto street paper Outrider, sees many benefits in the game.

"Anybody who tries to get the homeless involved in anything has my blessing," said Goodman. "They need all the encouragement they can get."

"You never know where this is going to go," organizer Young reflects.

"In 10 years we may have a semi-professional league across the world providing employment. We hope this whole experience will be positive for them — that they saw they could achieve something, could see other options, how they could reorientate themselves into society."

[ziv2002]

it can be really cool,

the problem is that I cant find nowhare

to see the results and everything...

I couldn't find a site that tells you whats hapening

with the himeless world cup...

Israel are on their way to...

Euro 2004!!!