The Unifying Power of Football
At the Special Olympics Asia Pacific office we agree on most things. For issues that we don’t see eye to eye on immediately, we usually arrive at a consensus after a combination of debate and discussion.
One intractable issue that we have never found a satisfying resolution to, however, is — who is the best football club out there? To defend our claims (and the honor of our clubs!), we offer up player stats; the size of the fan base; the number of championship titles; recent and past purchases; styles of play and competency of managers but it’s clear we will not be finding common ground any time soon!
Whether our loyalties and passions lie with the likes of Manchester United or Liverpool; Real Madrid or Barcelona; Juventus or Inter, one thing that connects us and untold millions around the world is a deep and abiding love for the game; and how 22 people tussling over a ball for 90 minutes on a field is so often an allegory for life itself with valuable lessons that can be learnt and applied in so many aspects of daily living.
The mission of Special Olympics is to eradicate discrimination toward people with intellectual disabilities and one of the ways we try to accomplish this massive undertaking is by training them in a sport, giving them a chance to excel and compete, and to be part of a wider community of fellow sportsmen and sportswomen, volunteers, supporters, coaches and officials. Toward this end, there has been no better vehicle than the beautiful game.
To say soccer is big in Special Olympics would be an understatement. In the Asia Pacific region alone, we have 247,691 Special Olympics soccer players, both men and women. We also have more than 70,000 Unified Partners — People without intellectual disabilities who partner Special Olympics athletes on the same team to play as one. We also boast more than 14,000 football coaches, all of them volunteers, who promote inclusiveness in their training and are themselves trained to instruct people with intellectual disabilities.
As our most popular sport by far, Special Olympics Asia Pacific facilitates several large football tournaments each year, most notably the Mekong Cup where Programs from Indochina gather to compete each year in a host country. Similar fiercely contested tournaments take place in Indonesia and Japan. This is in addition to the thousands of smaller tournaments and competitions played out in smaller venues to smaller fanfare, but with effects that extend far beyond the playing field. Soccer is also extremely popular in Special Olympics Bharat (India) where we count the Delhi Dynamos, one of India’s premier clubs, as a supporter. Likewise, Japanese football club Nagoya Grampus is a fervent supporter of the athletes from Special Olympics Nippon, who are frequently provided with coaching and encouragement from club officials and players.
Over at the regional office, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the Asian Football Confederation, a move that would give our Programs a conduit to their local football federations as well as access to professional instruction for both our athletes and their coaches. Finally, this memorandum of understanding also opens up and exposes our work to millions of soccer fans in Asia to confirm what they already know — The power of football to elevate and unite.
This relationship the Asian Football Confederation has already borne fruit. Just last year alone we hosted the first phase of the Asian Football Confederation C-License course, an internationally recognized coaching credential and a significant milestone in the developmental journey of any soccer coach. This course incorporated input from Special Olympics’ own experts, so participants would be able to provide quality training to athletes with intellectual disabilities.
The C-License course was followed by a workshop conducted by trainers from the Asian Football Confederation who took participants through a two-day course in social responsibility through football and competition management. Covering topics such as the latest trends in and best practices in social responsibility, communications strategies and how our partnership could elevate football programing at national level, this course benefited 20 representatives from Programs in the Asia Pacific region who will go on to propagate what they’ve learnt.
This year, we have taken soccer programming to new heights with the launch of our inaugural Asian Football Week. With the first games, Unified Tournaments and coaching clinics already in motion, we want the week of 20 to 27 July to be a celebration of soccer and the acknowledgement of its potential to include. We expect many moving and compelling stories to emerge from this week of activity; stories of how football and its community have the power to change lives and maybe even to teach us that our collective love for the game can transcend nationality, ethnicity and religious beliefs. We are all football fans, and this week, we hope you are one too.
