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The Irish FA

IFA'S ''WORLD UNITED'' PRAISED AS BEST PRACTICE

Release Date: 18/11/2011

The Irish Football Association (IFA) endorsed “World United” project has been highlighted as a best practice example of how Football Governing Bodies can use the universal power of Football to tackle racism and promote respect for diversity in a 2011 report produced by Dr Steven Bradbury of Loughborough University called “Representation and structural discrimination in football in Europe: The case of minorities and women”.

 

“World United” is an intercultural football project based in Belfast in Northern Ireland and is designed to increase the participation in organised football as players and as coaches amongst refugees and asylum seekers and members of ‘settled’ minority communities. The project is also intended to encourage increased social capital and community integration amongst minorities. The project presently features around forty players drawn from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds drawn from Somalia, the Ivory Coast,, Portugal, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Poland, and Iran, as well as indigenous Irish communities from both sides of the Catholic and Protestant religious divide in the country.

 

With support from UEFA and Peace III over the last 12 months the IFA’s Community Relations Department has also established a new “World United Women’s Team” with over thirty women from over twenty different nationalities enjoying the game of football in a fun, safe and inclusive environment. The IFA’s Peace III funded Community Relations Department works with a variety of partners to deliver free anti-racism and anti-sectarian workshops all over Northern Ireland.

 

IFA Head of Community Relations, Michael Boyd, said, “Both racism and sectarianism must be challenged in all their forms. There is no place for bigotry of any form in sport or society. World United is a very positive model of how we can use the universal power of football to promote respect for diversity and it is great it has been recognised in this recent international report. I would especially like to thank UEFA, the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council and Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities for their continued support”.

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  • World United players alongside Stefi Jones

    Some of the IFA’s Women’s World United with Stefi Jones, UEFA Women’s Football Ambassador (2nd from left)

    Picture Credit: Gary Hancock

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