ALL NATIONS FOOTBALL FESTIVAL

The All Nations Football Festival is a series of football competitions aimed at providing organised playing opportunities for refugee and other groups who, for a number of reasons, have been excluded from the Football Family. The intention is to provide teams competing in the Summer League with the opportunity of playing regularly in the newly created London Communities Football League.
Drawing upon the expertise of a range of partners the project was launched in May 2001.

Sixteen teams competed in an initial eight week tournament with players from countries such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Angola, Sudan and Ethiopia taking part.

Since the inception of the All Nations Football Festival in 2000 the London Playing Fields Foundation has provided over 400 hours of football for teams drawn from refugee and disadvantaged community groups. Over the six years a total of 155 teams drawn from 87 community groups have participated in the project. Through working in partnership with the Refugee Council, Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme, London Community Sports Network and London FA the project has attracted from the refugee groups, Positive Futures programmes, Football in the Community schemes and voluntary orgranisations across London.

The project has evolved from its original format of an eight week summer league to include an introductory one day tournament to act as a stepping stone to the league. Links were forged with the London County League to provide regular Saturday afternoon matches for teams able to demonstrate their commitment to sustaining their participation. When this league folded in 2003 the All Nations Steering Group took the decision to create the London Communities Football League in order to support teams who had moved on from the summer leagues.

The project offers more than the provision of playing opportunities. The Foundation supported the establishment of teams through assistance with funding applications to Awards for All and the Football Foundation's Small Grants Scheme. It has helped teams to acquire a set of football kit from the Barclaycard Free Kicks campaign. Training and education courses such as Effective Football Club Administration aimed to provide club members with the information and skills they would require to run their team. Level 1 Certificate in Coaching Footabll courses and Referees courses were also held for these teams to ensure that they had qualified members to sustain their activity.