The Kick Project

Our latest article, run on the Sport and Development website, on the peace potential in the dispute between Israeli settlers and the Palestinian Football Association. "It's disappointing FIFA has so far chosen not to lead on the issue of Israeli settlement teams playing in Palestinian West Bank. This is a real opportunity for the beleaguered overseer to take a stance, especially as it appears doing so would simply be by enforcing its own rules..."( more )....

pic:digitaltrends.com This year's Olympic Games covers thousands of hours of action over two weeks. It's impossible to see it all and such massive variety and the sheer breadth of content is often lost via the traditional single-channel-per-country viewing options. This model has tended to produce either a one-eyed coverage which focusses on the country for which the broadcaster holds the media rights (in cases where the country is deemed worthy of paying enough for dedicated coverage) or some generic hold-all (in countries too poor or unimportant to be able to buy dedicated rights) that generally fails to capture much of the magic. The Olympics, theoretically intended to bring the world closer together, often tends to emphasise the borders and the differences. Rio 2016 may be different. This time around, digital options are challenging the traditional TV broadcast lock-up. Numerous online channels and platforms are lining up to provide a blanket coverage of everyth...

Pic: upliftconnect.com As the Rio 2016 Olympics get closer - only 2 more sleeps!! - we at The Kick Project, like most, will be watching for all those great moments and stories. We hope that, despite all the apparent pre-Opening Ceremony dramas (just like every other Games in the last 20 years), the Games will provide the sense of connectivity and shared celebration it can deliver. While we are sports fans like anyone and we'll be watching the athletes do their thing, we are always paying attention to the human rights issues surrounding such major sporting events as this . But, there's two special aspects to this year's Games that make our viewing experience even more focussed. Both aspects refer to unique, first time ever, factors in the Games and how they are shaped. Here the first (the next will follow in another post soon) The Refugee Olympic Team We, not surprisingly, were very happy to see the IOC open up to allow refugee athletes to compete at these G...

Pic:Goal.com Sport, as they say, is the great leveller. Nothing else quite matches it to inspire, to lift, and to take us out of ourselves. In England today, perhaps the greatest sporting long-shot in living memory reached its spectacular conclusion. The path of bolters Leicester City to win  the English Premier League title is the stuff of legend, the kind of story parents yearn to tell their children. Is this something that can define a far larger moment? Leicester have already become everyone's favourite second team. Even some Spurs fans have a soft spot for the former battlers from the Midlands. as the usual big-money suspects - Manchester United and City, Chelsea, Arsenal - dropped out of contention as the season has progressed, Leicester kept ;ighting up stadiums across the country with an exhilarating combination of speed and directness. As a result, we have all become Leicester City now. The team itself is mostly made up of also rans and never weres. ...

We have launched our Pozible crowd fund campaign for the Rohingya Football Club initiative in KL, Malaysia. The program is our pilot international program so please consider making a donation to help us get off the ground globally. There are some great rewards, such as shirt sponsorships, available for donors. Full details are on the link provided above. Thankyou.

Pic: www.sportanddev.org Our founder James ran an article in today's Huffington Post, on the occasion of Anzac Day here in Australia. "The power of sport to provide a form of sustenance in times of deadly peril is recognised globally, not just by Australians. In fact, sport has proven to be not only a means of maintaining war, but of aiding peace. In conflict zones across the world, sport has been a presence as a vehicle to co-operate, work together, build bridges and to get along." You can read the full article here .

Click here if the link video above doesn't roll On Friday, April 8 we were involved in bringing coaches from Real Madrid to the Sunshine Coast, here in Australia, to coach some kids from troubled backgrounds. For free. It was a great gesture from the Real Madrid Foundation Clinics Australia group, who were already running some fee-based youth coaching clinics in the country. Some 60 boys and girls from around 7 up to about 16, were bussed up from Brisbane. Most of these were invited by Welcome to Australia, a local NGO working on settling refugees in Australia. A smaller number came from Harmony Place, a not for profit which assists refugee families dealing with trauma and mental health issues. We also invited some "local" players to come along and join in the afternoon friendlies, which we arranged for the afternoon, after the Real Madrid sessions in the morning. For us, it was a chance to test our wings and to see how we fly as an organisation. From our poi...