Bringing football to children

Association help
Together with 1,500 trainer assistants and more than 500 football clubs, the coaches are now ready to welcome 25,000 boys and girls aged between eight and 12 to an Open Fun Football School. The trainers have been educated in co-operation with the football associations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, F.Y.R. Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro.

Charity portfolio
Cross Cultures' Open Fun Football Schools are part of UEFA's charity portfolio, and are also backed by the governments of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, as well as by the Novo Nordisk healthcare enterprise. Last November, UEFA presented a cheque for €400,000 to the Open Fun Football Schools project. The funds were drawn from fines imposed by the UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body in UEFA competitions during the 2002/03 season.

1998 start
In 1998, the project started in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina with 12 football schools involving 2,252 boys and girls, and 189 coaches and school leaders. In summer 2003, Open Fun Football Schools staged a total of 78 schools involving 16,000 youngsters (13,000 boys and 3,000 girls) and 1,400 trainers and school leaders from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro. Schools were also set up for the first time in Croatia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Charity programme
"We are a charity programme that wishes to bring football to all children regardless of talent, skills, ethnic or social background," said Cross Cultures director Anders Levinsen. "And as initiator, it is fantastic to see how this idea is supported by enthusiastic and dedicated people."

Girl support
As a charity programme, Open Fun Football Schools' requirement is that a minimum 50 per cent of all children taking part are boys and girls who are not yet members of a football club, but who would love to become members. Furthermore, the Open Fun Football Schools also wish to promote girls football, and given the many new female coaches Cross Cultures has trained this summer, the organisation expects a minimum 25 per cent of all participants in the Balkans to be girls.

Community work
Along with the programme, Cross Cultures is distributing 27,000 footballs, trainers' clothes and other equipment for the participating football clubs. "By implementing our many trainer seminars and by leaving all the equipment behind, we hope we can motivate and encourage the local football clubs to continue their important community work in organising grassroots football for their children all year around," Anders Levinsen concluded.