23.03.2007
On Friday March 23, the day before England's crucial European Nations qualifier in Israel, volunteer staff and students from the university are running a Football for Peace (F4P) tournament for Jewish and Arab boys and girls in a park in downtown Tel Aviv.
The Tel Aviv tournament, which is supported by the British Council, the British Embassy in Israel, the Israeli Sports Authority, and the English FA, will involve 160 boys and girls playing in 16 mixed teams. Each team will play in professional English club strips donated by English teams at the request of England fans' associations and on the day will be supported by hundreds of England's travelling faithful.
In preparation for the festival 34 sports leaders from Israel came to England as part of the F4P training programme and worked with UK volunteer coaches as a prelude to the forthcoming international game and the 2007 summer project which will involve 1,200 Jewish and Arab boys and girls. John Sugden and Gary Stidder, lecturers at the university and founders of the project, both travelled to the FA headquarters in London to receive the kits from England manager Steve McLaren.
Left to right: England manager Steve McLaren with John Sugden and Gary Stidder, lecturers at the University fo Brighton.
Professor John Sugden is very excited about the tournament and said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to raise the profile of what has grown to be one of the biggest cross-community programmes in Israel. There will be huge media interest in England's vital qualifier. Having the F4P festival the Friday before the game, supported by England's fans with their flags and mascots, will give us the chance to show a really positive side to English football and its fans. It will also send a strong message that there is a genuine willingness in Israel for different communities to work toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence through sport."
The daytime event takes place in the riverside Hayarkon Park (www.tel-aviv-insider.com/park-hayarkon.php), with an awards ceremony afterwards presided over by Britain's ambassador to Israel, Simon McDonald. The tournament will be the centre piece of a large and friendly Fans' Festival which has been planned by the Tel Aviv municipality in the build up to England's crunch game. The event co-incides with the release of the book 'The challenges of using sport for co-existence in Israel' edited by John Sugden and a documentary film about F4P called 'Children of the Jordan Valley'.
F4P, a sport-based co-existence project for Jewish and Arab children, has been running in towns and villages in the Galilee region of Northern Israel since 2000. The work of F4P seeks to make grass-roots interventions into the sport culture of Israel and Palestine, while at the same time making a contribution to political debates and policy development around sport in the region.
More information about F4P is available at: www.football4peace.org.uk.
Contact: Marketing and Communications, University of Brighton, 01273 643022
