Street football tournament
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Press Release 11th May 2008
DADs in Bosnia and Herzegovina for Foca 08
From May 21st to 26th 2008 the town of Foca in Bosnia and Herzegovina will host a unique event in the field of Development through Football. At this inaugural event, teams from all over Europe will come together to present their work and celebrate the social dimension of the game. The event is being supported by the European Commission and is organised by the Berlin based organisation streetfootballworld. DADs is a member of streetfootballworld’s global Network of organisations that have identified football as an instrument to transform the lives of disadvantaged individuals world-wide.
The Hull based award winning Dads Against Drugs charity has been invited to the participate in the fast paced street football tournament in the town of Foca. A team of eight local youths between the ages of 14 and 18 and two accompanying team co-ordinators will participate alongside eleven further teams from Europe and twelve Balkan teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Foca, located in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a well-known centre of football in the Balkans. Prior to the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995, Foca hosted an annual youth football tournament bringing together the biggest clubs from across Yugoslavia. With the outbreak of conflict, however, the tournament was disbanded and it was not until ten years after the end of the war that streetfootballworld network member Football Friends revived the tournament. Last year, a street football festival was initiated that brought together youths from different Balkan communities that remain largely divided. Following its success, the Foca festival has expanded this year to include a wider European dimension.
Rob Broomfield, DADs Foca 08 Team Coordinator, said “this is a massive event for DADs, we will be representative of Hull and Yorkshire and we are proud to be taking a group of youths to a region that was devastated by the Balkans War. This event will bring together teams from different countries and social backgrounds to play football and participate in workshops to share information about what we do”.
John Wells, step father of Ashley Coates who is going to Foca 08, said “when DADs approached us to ask if Ashley could be part of the team travelling to Bosnia, we at first were concerned about the effect the war had had on the region and we were worried that there may be still hostilities in the area, but we were reassured by DADs that the region is recovering from the devastation and that the town and Mayor of Foca was eagerly waiting for the teams to arrive, we feel for Ashley that it will be a humbling experience and a chance to be a part of something big that will lead to unity and a positive future for young people from the region. He goes with our full support”.
George Springborg, coordinating the Foca 08 preparations for streetfootballworld, commented “Never before have so many European organisations in the field of Development through Football come together for a joint event and Fo c a 08 will mark the first step in the potential establishment of a European streetfootballworld Network. The preparations are well under way!”
All the 24 teams will be staying together in a hotel that has been newly reconstructed after been devastated by the war and evidence of that damage is still plain to see around the hotel, which is situated in a truly spectacular setting in the Sutjeska National Park, a few miles outside Foca. Here the teams will play the first stages of the tournament, with the final stages played on a specially constructed street football pitch adjacent to Foca’s main football ground.
The DADs team was the first team to be drawn on Friday, April 18th at the streetfootballworld office in Berlin. Group A will provide DADs with some fascinating first round encounters against teams such as Trebinje, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Latvian Street Soccer Association, Latvia, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Oltalom Sports Association, Hungary and Zenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina. The teams decide the rules of the tournament and these will be focused on fair play.
Notes to the Editors.
1. Dads Against Drugs is a charitable organisation that uses football to tackle drug, crime and anti social problems in Hull’s diverse communities and Prison environments. In 2006 DADs won the Governments Yorkshire & The Humber Tackling Drugs Changing Lives Award for its outstanding work.
For further information and details of future press releases about DADs participation in Foca 08 and availability of members of the team DADs team for interviews, please contact Rob Broomfield m: 07921249054 see: www.dadsagainstdrugs.karoo.co.uk/ for DADs news.
2. DADs have been streetfootballworld since its launch in 2001, and have supported the network with links to the Capital Area Soccer League in Nairobi that DADs travelled to on a fact finding mission in 2004. Since then, DADs and CASL communicate on a daily basis and DADs recently supported CASL with a donation following the aftermath of the troubles and violence following the Presidential elections that resulted in the deaths of many Kenyans and badly affected the community CASL serves.
3. The streetfootballworld global network is based in Berlin, they co-ordinated a network of 72 organisations throughout the world. Founded in 2002, t hey have been linking relevant actors in the field of Development through Football with the goal of promoting global partnerships for development. The name streetfootballworld does not only represent footballers who play on the street. It is about the street as a symbol for public space and football as a universal instrument for world wide social change. For further information about streetfootballworld and Foca 08 contact George Springborg t: +49 30 7800 6244 m: +49 176 240 840 38 see www.streetfootballworld.org
4. Hull City Council is pleased to be able to support DADS in this exiting venture in harnessing the positive effect of sport in building communities and making people feel good about themselves and their futures. We have recently seen the effect on morale that success for The Tigers has had on the whole city and are pleased to be able to share this feeling with others.
5. Media Relations at the event will be extensive and will be co-ordinated by Media Consulta, Germany’s largest Public Relations firm, they are responsible for film making, promotional material, audio visual documentation of the event and press delegation. See www.media-consulta.com
6. The European Commission – Directorate General for Enlargement is the main funding partners of Foca 08, see http://ec.euopa.eu/enlargement/.
7. Media workshops will be hosted by the BBC at Foca 08. The BBC are media partners of streetfootballworld, additionally the BBC will hold a symposium and showcase its Your Game programme, and initiative which redefines the role in sport-for-development as a tool to engage and inspire undeserved groups, inform journalists and give young people the tools to use media more effectively.
8. Parallel to Foca 08, the European Street Football Festival, Football Friends from the Balkans is hosting the fourth edition of its Youth Tournament in Foca. The tournament will bring together some of the biggest professional clubs in the region including Red Star Belgrade from Serbia, Groclin from Poland, Vardar from Macedonia and the host club FC Sutjeska from Foca.
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