Spirit of Football: A ball’s journey to the World Cup

Un blog hondureño en Inglés

While in South Africa, I had the opportunity to catch up with my old friend Andrew. He currently is Director of a non-profit community interest group, called Spirit of Football, which helps bring social change through the game of football. I invite you to read about the organization below and at the Spirit of Football website. Please consider joining the organization, which helps bring inspiration to children all over the world.

Every four years, the organization sends The Ball to the World Cup making stops in communities along the way to bring hope and happiness to children, via educational workshops. Expect The Ball to travel through Honduras in 2014, on its way to Brazil for the World Cup 2014. Read on to learn more about the organization…

Spirit of Football
Every four years, The Ball kicks off from its “Mount Olympus”, Battersea Park in London, where, on 9th January 1864, the very first game of football to FA rules took place. It heads from there to the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup.

The Ball looks clean before it has been headed, kicked and signed, (left). After it has been headed, kicked and signed by more than 17,000 people The Ball looks a bit different, (right).

Ball 2010 was made in Africa, by Africa for African conditions and is truly representative of Africa’s first World Cup. It was hand-stitched in Kenya by the charity Alive & Kicking (A&K), whose founder’s dying wish was that one of their balls travel throughout the African continent. The Ball 2010 fulfilled that wish: it was kicked, headed and signed by more than 17,000 people in 32 countries on its 138 day journey from London to Johannesburg.

Some icons derive their power from their exclusivity. The World Cup trophy, for example, is iconic because only a select few will ever touch it. The Ball, on the other hand, becomes iconic through its inclusivity. Everyone is welcome to kick and sign The Ball: it doesn’t matter if you are black or white, rich or poor, young or old, female or male, good at football or not and, as we shall see, it certainly doesn’t matter if you have an intellectual disability or not.

The Presidents of Mali and Zambia, the Prime Minister of Togo, the King of the Mossi people in Ouagadougou, religious leaders like the Pope of Voodoo in Ouidah, Benin and famous footballers like Julio Cesar (Brazil’s goalkeeper) all kicked and signed The Ball. But The Ball is for everyone – and the interactions with it, from smiles on the faces of thousands of children to 20 vehicle cavalcades through the streets of Abidjan, Dar es Salaam and Windhoek to hundreds of older women heading a football (perhaps for the first time in their lives) have been overwhelmingly positive.

Proudly, my signature joins those of children and leaders throughout Africa.

The journey has been a catalyst for social change. The Ball has been a rallying point around which NGOs have furthered their own causes. It has allowed Special Olympics (SO) to get their message of inclusion and tolerance out on national television to millions of people in Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.

Thousands of SO athletes have kicked and signed The Ball. At one game, an onlooker asked Christian (Spirit of Football’s co-founder) which players were intellectually disabled. No answer was required. It was a moment of insight into the effectiveness of Unified Football. Indeed, some of these games have become permanent fixtures which will raise money for SO in the future. All of this has helped Spirit of Football to develop a legacy for Africa in 2010 and beyond.