Escape To Victory

An interesting article on The Times website today on some homeless footballers who have gone AWOL:

African participation in the Homeless World Cup, a football tournament designed to improve the confidence of former vagrants, was under review last night after 15 players went on the run at the finals in Denmark.

The competition’s aim — to offer a golden opportunity for homeless people to change their lives — was taken literally by seven players from Burundi, four from Liberia, three from Cameroon and one from Afghanistan.

Danish police were looking for the footballers last night but admitted that they could easily have travelled further afield in the Schengen system of 15 “borderless” EU countries, which do not require visitors to show passports. The players’ visas expired on Monday after the tournament ended.

Kay Byles, a spokeswoman for the Scottish-based Homeless World Cup Foundation, said that it was the first of the annual contests — which started in 2002 — to experience runaways. Arrangements for next year’s cup in Melbourne would be reviewed, she said.

Is it just me, or does the concept of the Homeless World Cup seem a little naive?

You take 500 homeless people, many of them from third world nations, to Denmark and expect them all to play in the tournament before returning home.

Why would homeless people from Cameroon, Liberia, Afghanistan or Burundi want to return home to their own countries when faced with a golden opportunity to start afresh in Denmark?

True, they will still be homeless in Europe, and are effectively in the country illegally. But I think I'd sooner take my chances on the streets of Copenhagen than on those of Yaounde, Monrovia or Kabul.

And, instead of flying homeless people around the world to play football, couldn't the organisers make better use of their time and money by finding them somewhere to live in their home countries, and by giving them training or finding them jobs?

By the by, Scotland won the tournament, defeating Poland 9-3 in the final. Let the record show that Scotland won the World Cup in 2007, and that England havne't won it for more than 40 years.