No.47 May 2006 |
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Afghanistan vs. England in the quarter-finals? Brazil against a mixed
team from Israel and Palestine in the final? These are just two of the
possible pairings at the “streetfootballworld festival 06”,
the first ever Street Football World Cup to be held during the FIFA
World Cup 2006™ in Berlin.
Based in the German capital, streetfootballworld, a worldwide network
for street football, is organizing the “streetfootballworld festival
06” as an official contribution to the Artistic and Cultural Programme
of the FIFA World Cup 2006™. 24 teams from all over the world
will come together for eight days, July 2-8, in Berlin-Kreuzberg to
demonstrate their street football skills in a specially-constructed
street football stadium capable of accommodating over 2000 spectators.
The participating teams are made up of girls and boys aged between 16
and 21 who participate in development projects in their home countries
that aim to use football to promote peace, tolerance, education or fair
play and end violence, drug abuse, poverty, or the spread of HIV/AIDS.
streetfootballworld establishes football contacts via the worldwide
platform for street football which is a network they have been building
since 2002, in co-operation with the International Council for Sport
Science and Physical Education who is a partner in the scientific dimension
of the game. Nowadays, over 80 projects, on all continents, are engaged
in the streetfootballworld network with 24 of them sending their team
to the “festival 06”. The network facilitates exchange of
know-how between the projects, supports fundraising activities and strengthens
the international movement of street and grassroots football through
advocacy.
A deadly own goal provided the impetus for the establishment of the
worldwide streetfootballworld network. In 1994, the Colombian national
player Andrés Escobar was murdered following an own-goal committed
during the World Cup in the United States – a fatal mistake. The
murder led Jürgen Griesbeck, then a visiting lecturer in the Sport
Sociology Department at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, to
develop the idea of a street football project to promote dialogue between
young people. In 1996, he started Fútbol por la Paz, a project
bringing together violent youths who had turned to crime and victims
of the conflict to play football. Within a year, there were 500 teams
in Medellín and in parallel, many projects continued or started
using football as an effective medium for social development of young
people.
After Germany was chosen to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, Mr.
Griesbeck founded the streetfootballworld project in Berlin, which has
since become the worldwide platform for local street football initiatives
and the promotion of the social dimension of football - the other dimension
of the game. The “festival 06” is the culmination of this
work and a stage to celebrate street football from every corner of the
globe. Recently, the world’s football governing body FIFA and
streetfootballworld united to form a strategic alliance for ‘social
development through football’. The partnership begins with FIFA
helping to stage ‘festival 06’, which will provide the world
with a glimpse into the variety of street football cultures from as
far away as Rwanda and Argentina and is planned to continue to be held
every four years in conjunction with the FIFA World Cup™.
For more information on the festival ‘06,
the participating teams, or the streetfootballworld global network, visit
www.festival06.org
or www.streetfootballworld.org
Contact:
Vladimir Borkovic global network and research director Sybelstraße 58 10629 Berlin Tel: +49. 30. 7800 6248 Fax: +49. 30. 7800 6245 E-mail: borkovic@streetfootballworld.org ![]() http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5 |