FIFA's solid gold balls

This very good piece from the BBC is a great backgrounder to FIFA's current traipse through the mud of its own making. Highly recommended listening for football fans everywhere.

As a not for profit in football, not unlike FIFA in some aspects at its founding, we at The Kick Project are very wary that becoming too tethered to sponsorships and revenue streams can damage our culture irrevocably, as well as, ultimately, that of our sponsors. It serves no longer term purpose of any positive nature.

Easy (and appropriate) to be critical of those involved, but let's take the moment for what it is: an opportunity to learn from past mistakes. Lessons for us all here I think.

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Post-UNOSDP - Is the IOC fool's gold?

This is a longer version of an article published on SportandDev.org With the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace closed down by the global body, there is undoubtedly a void in this space in which many of us here work. But, for all the high profile oomph the UNOSDP added to the world of sport for good, it’s passing need not be seen as devastating. For one, the work the UNOSDP has already done in its 16 years of life has laid a platform for the development of sport for social justice. While many of us knew for years that sport had a wider purpose beyond mere business or entertainment, the UNOSDP has provided a base of credibility that may have otherwise taken much longer to establish. While much of the work is, in many ways, still to be done, the UNOSDP has left a positive legacy on which we can all build. More problematic is the shifting of the UNOSDP’s brief to the IOC. Obliging the IOC to administer to the peace and development facets ...

Statement on Funding for the Rohingya Football Club

We are very pleased to announce that The Kick Project has received a $AUD16,500 donation from the Australian Government to fund a pilot soccer program with Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. The funds, coming through the Australian High Commission in Malaysia, will allow the charity to support the Rohingya Football Club which has become a vital part of the exiled Rohingya community in Kuala Lumpur. The program entails kitting out the team, providing transport to games and establishing a sports and community hub where Rohingya people can access sporting equipment and coaching. Young people, and girls in particular, are the long term focus of the initiative. The Kick Project founder James Rose says the Rohingya are in dire need of assistance. "The UN has called the Rohingya arguably the most persecuted group in the world. They've been forced to flee their homelands in Myanmar, where they have been made stateless by government decree, and many have lost their lives...

Gaza Update

One year on from the escalation of violence in Gaza and things are still looking very sour. A news quote from Save the Children CEO Paul Ronalds is pertinent: "Save the Children is urging Australia and other nations to use their diplomatic influence to promote the lifting of the blockade to allow the entry of essential humanitarian aid and enable the rebuilding of homes and schools, and support a return to some level of normality for the many distressed children in Gaza.” The Kick Project is still working hard to take a program to Gaza. But, these plans have been re-scheduled for various reasons. Mainly, the program has proved to be a little more complicated than we had anticipated and we have re-focussed on plans for our Rohingya program in Malaysia. We feel that at this early stage of our development as a not for profit organisation we need to build more critical mass in our funding and our management infrastructure before launching into Gaza. We are wary of wast...

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