St George's Park FA CentreA CHARITY event to combat homelessness is set to be held at St George’s Park near Burton.
Sixteen teams are being sought to compete in the Homeless World Cup — an annual event which is using the national football centre as its base later this year.
The event has been organised as part of the ‘Kinetic 5s’ programme of charity football tournaments.
Previously the Homeless World Cup has been held in London and Glasgow.
This year’s Homeless World Cup will begin at the Rangemore-based football centre on July 28 at 10am.
The organisers said in a statement: “The Kinetic 5s is a series of unique corporate five-a-side football tournaments held around the UK.
“Over the past two years, we have held tournaments in Glasgow and London and 2013 sees us expanding to other cities around the UK.
“These Kinetic 5s events have inspired more than 50 corporate teams and more than 500 participants from across the UK to come on board and make a difference to homeless people worldwide.
“Previous years have seen some amazing matches, iconic venues and money-can’t-buy prizes. 2013 promises to be bigger and better than ever.”
The last Homeless World Cup took place in Mexico City and amateur teams from 54 countries took part.
The event’s organisers added: “The Homeless World Cup uses the power of football to energise homeless people so they can change their lives.
“It supports grass-roots football programmes and social enterprise development via a network of 73 national partners and celebrates its work by organising an annual football tournament that unites teams of people from countries all around the globe.”
The Homeless World Cup was founded by Mel Young from Scotland and Harald Schmied from Austria, who came up with the idea at a conference on homelessness in Cape Town in 2001.
They both believed that it was possible to ‘change the lives of homeless people through football’ and two years later the first Homeless World Cup tournament took place in Graz in Austria.
St George’s Park was officially opened last year and has been used for many community and charity events. The site contains 12 pitches in total.
Further information is available by visiting www.kinetic5s.com
