02.06.2006
The university's pioneering project 'Football 4 Peace', now in its sixth year, has been made into a documentary movie, which will be shown in cinemas across Germany during this year's World Cup.
The documentary, named 'Children of Jordan Valley' follows the journey of student coaches in Israel as they attempt to use football as a medium to promote peace amongst Muslim, Jewish and Christian children. Its director Simon Jocker plans to release it publicly a week before the World Cup Final, with the premier on 4 June in Berlin.
At the first showing of the movie last year was former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres who was very impressed: "I think nothing serves peace better than a football game with the participation of children."
If youngsters aren't thinking about football then it's usually the opposite sex and in the trailer male and female relationships are used to illustrate the Muslim and Jewish divide. The boys are asked before the project if they would marry a Jewish girl and they quickly reply with "No" and a puzzled look but following the football matches one young boy is asked the same question and he seems to muse over it for a few seconds before eventually saying "Yes".
Football 4 Peace originated in 2000 as an idea between Professor John Sugden and Gary Stidder, who first travelled out to Israel in the summer of 2001. Since then it has nearly doubled in size each year and now has the backing of the FA, British Sports Council, and the London Marathon. With all this backing and support the project is proving to be a great success and Gary says in the documentary: "This project is about three things; fun, football and friendship."
It is not just in Israel where there are problems amongst cultures though and Professor Sugden can see the project being exported. He said: "There are talks of possibly trialling the project in Cyprus, South Africa, the Balkans and Northern Ireland." Exploring these new countries will surely only boost the profile of an already remarkable scheme; this summer there are expected to be 1,500 people involved and around one thousand of those will be children.
The project kicked off this year with a training week held in Eastbourne which was attended by Israeli coaches, some of whom are FIFA recognised, all UK student coaches and 75 local children. The week entailed training exercises, off-field activities and strategic planning and all the Israeli coaches involved were expected to carry out the programme taught in the UK back in their home country.
However, despite what people might think football is not what this project is about. Gary Stidder explains: "The project is nothing to do with football. Football is the medium that we use, it's the tool that we use, it's the global language. Football has this appeal to young people, and we use that to develop citizenship... getting them to respect the difference and opinions of others and respect the difference in cultural identity."
See the trailer
You can view the trailer of the film 'Children of Jordan Valley' here: http://www.magic-hour-productions.com/en_films.htm (opens in new window).
Contact: Marketing and Communications, University of Brighton, 01273 643022
