2020 required a tremendous demonstration of flexibility and perseverance for ISF’s Football Programme team. Like every other sports education programme, our operations were hit hard by the global pandemic. But when faced with the seemingly impossible challenges of restrictions on travel and gatherings, our committed team got creative, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. And the results were nothing short of amazing.

Highlights

• Winner of the prestigious Sport for Development and Peace Program of the Year Award presented by Peace and Sport for our UEFA Foundation for Children-sponsored project that reached 500 youth in rural provinces.
• Created a world’s first: Social Distance Football. A version of the game that takes into account the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s suggestions to limit the spread of COVID-19.
• Boys’ and Girls’ tournaments were bigger than ever! The Boys’ event hosted 540 players, more than ever before and the Girls’ Tournament increased by 42% from 2018.
• 1,500 boys and girls took part in our AIA-sponsored youth league, making it the largest grassroots football programme in Cambodia
• Over 500 players with disability and HIV reached through all abilities events, annual tournament and coaching sessions
• 200 coaches and aspiring coaches trained in football for social impact in PP and provinces
• 800 able-bodies players and 200 players with disabilities or HIV benefitted from football coaching and social impact sessions

The Football Programme started strong last year with a series of successful tournaments. January was packed with matches continuing from December as part of the 2019-2020 season of our AIA-ISF Youth League. Over one thousand five hundred young players aged 10 to 17 years old participated in the league. While the series was scheduled to run for six consecutive months, public events’ cancellation due to the pandemic caused a significant hiatus. To our players’ joy, though, we were able to hold an action-packed closing event and crown season champions in October of 2020. See photos here.

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In February, we held our annual Ian Thompson Memorial – ISF Boys’ Tournament. 540 youth from ten of Cambodia’s 24 provinces participated in a day of play that they would likely not have experienced elsewhere. In the following month, just a day before International Women’s Day, we held ISF’s yearly Girls’ Tournament sponsored by Goldman Sachs Gives. Participants increased by 42%—from 288 players in 2018 to 408 in 2020—and the number of teams has grown from 24 to 35. We also expanded the event to include U10 division in 2020. They traveled from nine provinces to take part in Cambodia’s largest annual tournament for young female players. Because our programme works with disadvantaged children living in communities where poverty, social exclusion, and lack of opportunity often lead to harmful behaviours, these events are significant to them.

In mid-March, the Cambodian government mandated all schools close and sporting events halted to prevent the spread of COVID-19. While this was a blow to the programme, these challenging times fueled our team’s drive to keep reaching out to disadvantaged youth. First, to make sure that our players didn’t drift away from the sport and be drawn to unhealthy behaviours, they began giving online training. The lessons included at-home exercise demonstrations and motivational conversation sessions. Through steaming classes, online groups, and community outreach, many of our players remained engaged in sport and healthy while the programme was on hold.

Though the team’s concern for players didn’t stop at those who participate in our programme. After seeing children playing football regardless of the risk, our Football Programme Staff created a world’s first in a moment of ingenuity. Because they knew that keeping children from play just wasn’t possible, our team wanted to give them a safe way to play. With inspiration from the tabletop game Fussball and incorporating WHO’s best practices for COVID-19 infection prevention, Social Distance football was born. To share our experiment and inspire other organisations to adapt the game to their needs, we released a video of our game to worldwide acclaim, which received over 160,000 views online.

Along with engaging and empowering youth, ISF coaches invested in self-improvement during their downtime. “We don’t stay at home and do nothing! We work together to improve ourselves,” laughs ISF coach Srey Mom. “We’ve been training on how to work with disabled players, and we are designing a new curriculum. We want to be more capable and prepared when the programme starts again.” In May, our coaches held a training event to improve how they mentor and referee blind footballers. It was led by our Head Coach Makara who has been trained by Paralympics Cambodia and the International Blind Sports Association.

Five of our junior coaches also began training in September to gain their C license. This qualification, granted by the Football Federation of Cambodia (FFC), is the first step to becoming a full-time professional coach. C Licenses enable coaches to work with community and secondary school teams. B licenses permit employment as assistant coaches in national teams. Finally, coaches with A licenses can work in top-flight football teams. “It’s very important indeed,” says ISF Football Programme Manager Samedy Yin. “For people who work in the field of football, it’s like a university degree.” They’re taking the test in January, so keep your fingers crossed for them!

While some coaches invested in their mentorship skills, others took a more technical route by taking computer lessons. “I really like learning more about how to work with computers; it’s helped me a lot,” says coach Panha. “You might think football coaches don’t need computers, but this will help us to do attendance lists, lesson plans, presentations, and other important things.”

During their tireless work, a series of high-profile global award nominations kept our coaches’ morale up. First, they were delighted to receive ISF’s first-ever nomination for a World Football Summit Award. We were chosen for our Sport for All Abilities project in the category of Football for Good. The nomination recognises its pioneering mix of training and events, which are inclusive of people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and health conditions, such as HIV. The second came from Beyond Sport, which also championed our Sport for All Abilities project for a Reduced Inequalities Global Award. While we didn’t receive either, it was an incredible honour to have been in the running alongside a host of other amazing international organisations. However, we did strike gold with the third.

We were truly overjoyed to win the 2020 Peace and Sport Award in the prestigious Sport for Development and Peace Program of the year category. The award recognised our Football for Change outreach project sponsored by UEFA Foundation for Children. Throughout the project, ISF coaches trained 200 aspiring coaches in rural Cambodia to use our Social Impact Curriculum to train 500 youth. It was such a high note to end what was a tumultuous year. See former alpine skier and Champion for Peace Pernilla Wiberg present us with the award below.

We can’t help but feel a swell of pride in our whole Football Programme staff looking back over 2020. By improving coaches’ skills and experimenting with the best ways to communicate with our players, our team is building the versatility and resilience needed to tackle any challenges we face in 2021.