Movie to see: Kicking It! about the Homeless World Cup of soccer

[Paul Gydos]

“Kicking It!” a movie about the Homeless World Cup, don’t laugh.
July 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Everybody knows that in the United States we call it “soccer”, and the
rest of the world calls it football.

But did you know that over 1 billion people in the world are homeless!
And what’s the most popular sport in the world? “Kicking it”, the ball
that is. All over the world, one sees the poor taking a refreshment
from their daily trials on the field, and for those minutes or hours
they are as a rich in enjoyment as the greatest of professional game
players. Furthermore a championship world cup in the world’s most
popular sport and one that draws only from the 1/5 to 1/6 of the
world’s most vulnerable population is one of the most incredible ideas
I have heard of for a long time.

Last night I had the privilege of watching the film “Kicking it!”
about how a ball can change the life of a displaced person in the most
dramatic of ways. It chronicles the lives of six homeless or formerly
homeless individuals from five countries and how participating in
playing in organized street ball can be taken all the way to a very
real world championship tournament, in this case in South Africa
emceed by Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The idea was founded in 2001by Mel Young co-founder of The Big Issue
Scotland, and Harald Schmied, editor of Megaphon, a street paper in
Austria while attending the International Network of Street Papers
conference that was in Cape Town, South Africa. (wikipedia)

Colin Farrell gives the intros and exits to the documentary but the
real characters are the six otherwise marginalized people who have the
privilege of playing in the tournament: Najib from war torn
Afghanistan; Alex from the slums of Kenya; Damien and Simon from the
drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland; Craig from the streets of
Charlotte, North Carolina; Jesus from the overflowing public shelters
of Madrid, Spain, and Slavan from the shadow culture of the illegal
rural immigrants to the big city of St. Petersburg, Russia.
(movies.aol.com)

For those who care about the human condition, those in the poverty
scene looking for ideas, fans of any sport will enjoy this movie. I
enjoyed writing this article particularly to learn that other writers
in my sector were responsible for making this happen. I hope you’ll
watch it then take some action in your area with a great idea as well.

btw I saw it on hulu.com, but I ‘m sure you can find the movie
elsewhere.

Paul Gydos