Our football coaches have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19 in 2020. They usually thrive on travelling around Cambodia,working directly with young players, and the physicality of contact sport—all of which has been impossible due to physical distancing and travel restrictions. Fortunately, three things have helped them to keep their morale up—a series of high-profile global award nominations!

Everyone at ISF was delighted to receive our first ever nomination for the World Football Summit Awards. It is part of the largest event for people working in football worldwide. We were nominated in the category of Football for Good, which recognises our Sport for All Abilities project and its pioneering creation of training and events, which are fully inclusive of people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and health conditions, such as HIV. This project has transformed the lives, improved the fitness, and boosted the self-confidence of hundreds of disadvantaged young Cambodians. Despite not securing the gold medal, we were very pleased for Dream A Dream organisation who do exceptional work using football to reach vulnerable children in India.

The Sport for All Abilities project has also been nominated by Beyond Sport in their Reduced Inequalities category, one of four to be shortlisted from across the whole world. We are competing against organisations representing over half a dozen countries, showing just how global these awards really are. We have long admired Beyond Sport, who does extraordinary work on behalf of all organisations using sport to address social issues. The winner will be announced in December, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

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Our final award nomination comes from Peace and Sport—a unique organisation that works closely with the United Nations and many other NGOs across the world to reduce conflict and build peace through sport. We have been nominated in the very prestigious Sport for Development and Peace Program of the year for our UEFA Foundation-sponsored social outreach project in rural Cambodia. We’re very proud of this project, given that it reaches some of the most marginalised and hardest to reach young people in the country, and uses sport to educate them on crucial social issues. Our coaches try to encourage these young players to prioritise their education whilst enjoying team sports by stating that school attendance is a necessary condition for joining the course. So far 99% of the 500 participants have pledged to pursue further education. We also find out the result for this award in December, so don’t uncross your fingers for that month!

Photo credit: Daniel Harrington

“We’re very proud to get this kind of recognition,” says Samedy Yin, head of the ISF Football Programme. “When we began creating our football programmes for the most disadvantaged Cambodian children, I had many hopes. The most important was that we really did benefit the lives of children. But I also hoped we might get a little bit of recognition for sport in Cambodia, show the world what we are capable of when we work together. I thought it was probably just a dream, but these award nominations show we are getting there. I’m incredibly proud of all the coaches who have worked so hard to create such effective football programmes and to improve the lives of every child they work with. It doesn’t matter whether we win or not, just to be shortlisted is more than would once have seemed possible.”