By Armstrong Vas
Doha: FIFA 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar is likely to host another football World Cup much before the quadrennial showpiece event, organisers of the Homeless World Cup said here yesterday.
The Homeless World Cup, held every year since 2001, is likely to be held in the GCC region in the next three to four years time and Qatar is a firm favourite to get the nod, Mel Young Co-founder of the Homeless World Cup told The Peninusla.
“We have little tentative discussions, we will want more discussions, like bidding, but we should be in region. As for my personal opinion at the moment Qatar is the best place just because I am fascinated by the way Qatar is positioning itself as a major sports country in the world and that is very interesting. Much more interesting is how Qatar sees sports to bring about a change in society,” said Young.
“Given the people, the government of Qatar and their contributions to sports it seems to be obvious we should be doing something in Qatar. May be in two or three or may be four years time we should be hosting the Homeless World Cup in the region. And so from my point of view, to hold a Homeless World Cup in Qatar at some point will hold complete sense to me, as it with will help other countries from the region to be inducted into the Homeless World Cup organization,” he added.
The Homeless World Cup organization has partners in 74 countries and Young said they want to spread the movement with focus on North Africa and Middle East and holding the Cup in the Middle East region is their immediate priority.
“In Northern Africa we do not have so many countries as partners, this year Egypt is joining for the first time, that is why we want to be in Qatar, when we were in South Africa (for the Homeless World Cup) many South African countries joined the movement. We would like to have more countries from North Africa and Middle East under our umbrella.”
Young said that his organization is open to hosting the Homeless World Cup in any other country in the GCC.
“(We aim to host it) in any country in the region (GCC), that is the reason we want to move our Cup because the profile is very high, the media come and it is on television. So when we were in Australia as a result they started street soccer all over Australia and some Asian countries became involved. So we would like, some countries will say ‘we have no poverty no homeless’, that’s not true, every country has it set of problems, so we have to be open about it and say ‘we have this problem and we have some solutions’. We should be doing something as part of the legacy of getting some countries from the region involved.”
Young is not new to Qatar having attended the Doha Goals Forum over the past couple of years.
“It’s really interesting to be in Qatar having been there for the Doha Goals Forum for the last two of the three editions held in Doha. The Doha Goals Forum is all about sports and development and how you can use sports as a change. The fact that Qatar is backing these type of conferences is really really interesting,” said Young, who attended last week’s meet held in Los Angeles, the first time the Doha Goals has been held outside Qatar.
The white haired Messi fan and a supporter of Hibernian Scottish club said the power of football to bring about peace should be used to its optimum level worldwide.
“Our aim is to get the people off the streets, football done like this (street soccer) can bring about peace. Many countries in the region have war, horrible war, and we should be trying to use sport as an intervention,” said the Scott.
“Politicians fail everybody fail (in conflict ridden countries), but young people really do not want to be in war, really, so football can bring change, it is another language which people understand, so if we can help in any way with such things it will be a great thing.”
This year’s Homeless World Cup will be held in Amsterdam Holland and will have 48 men’s teams and 16 women participants. Santa Tiago, Chile hosted last year’s edition.The Peninsula
