The Homeless World Cup (HWC) is an annual association football tournament organized by the Homeless World Cup Foundation, a social organization which advocates the end of homelessness through the sport. The organization puts together an annual football tournament where teams of homeless people from various countries compete. The tournament was first held in 1999, and in 2008 it added a women's competition. From 2010 onwards, all tournaments have featured both men's and women's teams. The 2024 edition of the tournament takes place in Seoul, Korea.

History

The Homeless World Cup organization was co-founded by Mel Young and Harald Schmied in 2001 to advocate for a global solution to homelessness. The first annual football tournament for homeless people took place in 2003 in Graz, Austria. Host cities since then have included Gothenburg, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Cape Town, Melbourne, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Poznań, Santiago, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Oslo, and Mexico City. The 2019 edition was hosted by Wales in Bute Park, Cardiff, with Michael Sheen opening the tournament. The 2020 tournament had been due to take place in Tampere, Finland, but was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2023 tournament took place in Sacramento, California, and the 2024 edition takes place in Seoul, Korea. The international headquarters of the Homeless World Cup is located at 1 Broughton Market, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

National partners

The Homeless World Cup organization operates through a network of more than 80 national partners around the world, supporting football programs and social enterprise development.

Members

Around 100 million homeless + 1.6 billion lack adequate housing.

Regions

69 Nations in October 2023:

Format

Fields

Since 2015 the tournament has been played on synthetic turf fields from Act Global.

Rules

Player eligibility

Players must meet all of the following criteria: Also, must be any of the following:

Participants

A maximum of 4 players per team on the court:

Tournament details

The winning team gets 3 points. The losing team gets zero points. If a match ends in a draw, it is decided by sudden-death penalty shootout and the winning team gets two points and the losing team gets one point. Games are 14 minutes long, in two seven-minute halves. The field measures 22m long x 16m wide.

Broadcast

FIFA+ broadcasts the Homeless World Cup.

Results

Men

Participating nations

Women

Participating nations

Performance by country

Men

Women

Medals

Men (2003—2023)

Women (2008—2023)

Media coverage

Journalist Rick Reilly said "Homeless soccer turned out to be one of the best things I've covered in all my years. Seeing these people finally getting cheered, finally feeling some self-worth, was great. It was great to see these guys caring about something other than booze or where they're going to find food or where they're going to sleep - just getting to be regular people for once." Several TV documentaries have been made tracking the participation of teams from homelessness to participating at the annual event. In 2011, a 90-minute documentary called Hors-Jeu: Carton rouge contre l’exclusion was broadcast by Canal+ and focused on the Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup and Homeless World Cup itself and five national partners: Japan, Argentina, Palestine, France and Kenya. It was aired in France on 9 October 2011. The documentary was directed by Jérôme Mignard and Thomas Risch. The 2006 Homeless World Cup was the subject of a documentary entitled Kicking It. directed by Susan Koch and Jeff Werner focusing on the experiences of seven homeless people at the Homeless World Cup football (soccer) game in South Africa. Featured in the documentary, narrated by actor Colin Farrell were residents of Afghanistan; Kenya; Dublin, Ireland; Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.; Madrid, Spain and St. Petersburg in Russia. The film premiered in January, 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival, distributed by Liberation Entertainment, Netflix and ESPN. In 2023, the South Korean comedy-drama film Dream was released, centering on a football player who receives disciplinary provision and is given the job of coaching the national football team for the Homeless World Cup. Directed by Lee Byeong-heon and starring Park Seo-joon and Lee Ji-eun, it was the twelfth highest-grossing Korean film of the year. In 2024, The Beautiful Game was released on Netflix. The sports drama film written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and directed by Thea Sharrock, it centers around the English football squad as they compete in the Homeless World Cup. The film stars Bill Nighy, Micheal Ward, Valeria Golino and Susan Wokoma in leading roles.