Homeless World Cup

Homeless World Cup

The Homeless World Cup logo
Founded	2003
Region	World
Number of teams	70+
Current champions	Chile (2nd title)
Most successful team(s)	Scotland,  Brazil,  Italy and  Chile (2 titles each)
Website	http://www.homelessworldcup.org/
2014 Homeless World Cup

The Homeless World Cup is a football tournament organized by the Homeless World Cup organization, a social organization which advocates the end of homelessness through the sport of association football (or soccer). The organization puts together an annual football tournament where teams of homeless people from each country compete. The twelfth edition of the Homeless World Cup annual football tournament will take place in Santiago, Chile in 2014.

History

Players huddle during the Homeless World Cup 2007 in Copenhagen

The Homeless World Cup organization was co-founded by Mel Young and Harald Schmied in 2001 to advocate for a global solution to homelessness. The first annual football tournament for homeless people took place in 2003 in Graz, Austria. Host cities since then have included Gothenburg, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Cape Town, Melbourne, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Mexico City and Poznań. Santiago will host the 2014 edition.

The international headquarters of the Homeless World Cup is in the South Stand of Hibernian FC's Easter Road stadium in Leith, Scotland.

National partners

The Homeless World Cup organization operates through a network of more than 70 national partners around the world, supporting football programs and social enterprise development.^[1]

Annual tournament

Rules

Player eligibility

Players must meet all of the following criteria:

• Be male or female and at least 16 years old at the time of the tournament
• Have not taken part in previous Homeless World Cup tournaments

Also, must be any of the following:

• Have been homeless at some point after the previous year's tournament in accordance with the national definition of homelessness
• Make their main living income as a streetpaper vendor
• Be asylum seekers currently without positive asylum status or who were previously asylum seekers but obtained residency status a year before the event
• Currently be in drug or alcohol rehabilitation and also have been homeless at some point in the past two years

Participants

A maximum of 4 players per team on the court:

• 3 outfield players,
• 1 goalkeeper,
• Plus 4 substitution players (rolling substitution allowed)

Tournament details

The winning team gets 3 points. The losing team gets zero points. If a match ends in a draw, it is decided by sudden-death penalty shootout and the winning team gets two points and the losing team gets one point. Games are 14 minutes long, in two seven-minute halves. The field measures 22m long x 16m wide.

Results and rankings

Results

Year	Host		Winners	Score	Runners-up		Third place	Score	Fourth place		Number of teams
2003 Details	Graz,  Austria		Austria	2–1	England		Netherlands	11–5	Brazil
2004 Details	Gothenburg,  Sweden		Italy	4–0	Austria		Poland	7–4	Scotland
2005 Details	Edinburgh,  Scotland		Italy	9–3	Poland		Ukraine	11–5	Scotland
2006 Details	Cape Town,  South Africa		Russia	1–0	Kazakhstan		Poland	3–1	Mexico		26
2007 Details	Copenhagen,  Denmark		Scotland	9–3	Poland		Liberia	11–5	Denmark
2008 Details	Melbourne,  Australia		Afghanistan	5–4	Russia		Ghana	6–4	Scotland		56 [2]
2009 Details	Milan,  Italy		Ukraine	5–4	Portugal		Brazil	3–2	Nigeria		48 [3]
2010 Details	Rio de Janeiro,  Brazil		Brazil	6–0	Chile		Mexico	4–4 (1–0p)	Portugal
2011 Details	Paris,  France		Scotland	4–3	Mexico		Brazil	7–1	Kenya
2012 Details	Mexico City,  Mexico		Chile	8–5	Mexico		Brazil	6–2	Indonesia		48
2013 Details	Poznań,  Poland		Brazil	3–3 (1–0p)	Mexico		Russia	6–6 (1–0p)	Chile
2014 Details	Santiago,  Chile		Chile	5–2	Bosnia and Herzegovina		Poland	6–6 (1–0p)	Brazil		42 [4]

Rankings

Teams reaching the top four

Team	Titles	Runners-up	Third place	Fourth place	Top 4 finishes	Top 3 finishes	Top 2 finishes
Chile	2 (2012, 2014)	1 (2010)	0	1 (2013)	4	3	3
Brazil	2 (2010, 2013)	0	3 (2009, 2011, 2012)	2 (2003, 2014)	7	5	2
Scotland	2 (2007, 2011)	0	0	3 (2004, 2005, 2008)	5	2	2
Italy	2 (2004, 2005)	0	0	0	2	2	2
Russia	1 (2006)	1 (2008)	1 (2013)	0	3	3	2
Austria	1 (2003)	1 (2004)	0	0	2	2	2
Ukraine	1 (2009)	0	1 (2005)	0	2	2	1
Afghanistan	1 (2008)	0	0	0	1	1	1
Mexico	0	3 (2011, 2012, 2013)	1 (2010)	1 (2006)	5	4	3
Poland	0	2 (2005, 2007)	3 (2004, 2006, 2014)	0	5	5	2
Portugal	0	1 (2009)	0	1 (2010)	2	1	1
Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1 (2014)	0	0	1	1	1
England	0	1 (2003)	0	0	1	1	1
Kazakhstan	0	1 (2006)	0	0	1	1	1
Ghana	0	0	1 (2008)	0	1	1	0
Liberia	0	0	1 (2007)	0	1	1	0
Netherlands	0	0	1 (2003)	0	1	1	0
Denmark	0	0	0	1 (2007)	1	0	0
Indonesia	0	0	0	1 (2012)	1	0	0
Kenya	0	0	0	1 (2011)	1	0	0
Nigeria	0	0	0	1 (2009)	1	0	0

Media coverage

Several TV documentaries have been made tracking the participation of teams from homelessness to participating at the annual event.

In 2011, a 90-minute documentary called Hors-Jeu: Carton rouge contre l’exclusion was broadcast by Canal+ and focused on the Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup and Homeless World Cup itself and five national partners: Japan, Argentina, Palestine, France and Kenya. It was aired in France on the 9th of October 2011. The documentary was directed by Jérôme Mignard and Thomas Risch.^[5]

The 2006 Homeless World Cup was the subject of a documentary entitled Kicking It.^[6][7] directed by Susan Koch and Jeff Werner focusing on the experiences of seven homeless people at the Homeless World Cup football (soccer) game in South Africa. Featured in the documentary, narrated by actor Colin Farrell were residents of Afghanistan; Kenya; Dublin, Ireland; Charlotte, U.S.A.; Madrid, Spain and St. Petersburg in Russia. The film premiered in January, 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival, distributed by Liberation Entertainment, Netflix and ESPN.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Homeless World Cup.

• Official website
• Rankings Homeless World Cup
• The Rules for the annual football tournament