Irish Street Leagues celebrate 20th anniversary with international tournament
|Ten teams competed at the anniversary tournament in Dublin. Image: Mark McDermott
|Women’s and men’s teams competed at the tournament. Image: Mark McDermott
On 8th - 9th June ten teams from across Europe travelled to Dublin to compete in two-day street football tournament. Teams from England, Finland, Northern Ireland, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Spain and Wales came together to celebrate twenty years of Irish Street Leagues.
Northern Ireland took the title in the men’s competition after beating Lithuania in the final. Romania won the women’s trophy.
Set up in 2004, Irish Street Leagues has helped more than 3,000 people across Ireland to change their lives through football. Ireland have been regular competitors at the Homeless World Cup since it was established in 2001.
Sean Kavanagh, Founder of Irish Street Leagues said: “It’s been a long 20 years! When you look at all we’ve been through from being such a tiny organisation, to being able to put on a tournament like this, it is phenomenal. It gives people a goal and you need a goal – you’re trying to get on the straight and narrow and you need to keep a focus. The whole thing about the Homeless World Cup is that a ball can change a life and it does.”
|Irish Street Leagues founder Sean Kavanagh (left) and Homeless World Cup Co-Founder Mel Young. Image: Mark McDermott
Many familiar faces from the Homeless World Cup attended the tournament, including Homeless World Cup co-founder Mel Young and several Homeless World Cup international referees.
Speaking about the role we can all play in ending homelessness, Mel said: “When you look at the figures of homelessness in the world it’s astonishing – tens of millions – and so what can we do about it? Often your brain goes numb – ‘Oh, I don’t know’ - my thought is if we all do a little something, whatever that is, and you do it together you can make significant change.”
|Graham Mellon (Number 15) with the Irish men’s team. Image: Mark McDermott
One of the many players whose lives have been changed by joining Irish Street Leagues is Graham Mellon. After his relationship broke down because of his ongoing struggles with drug addiction and his mental health, he became homeless and was staying in emergency accommodation. On the wall of the hostel where he was saying he saw a poster which said: ‘a ball can change a life’.
Graham had always played football and started to go along each Saturday morning.
“It felt good, it was something I could commit to and as I progressed and I was getting more serious, I was getting trials for Ireland, the bigger picture started to open up then.”
Now he has been selected for the Irish team and will compete at the Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup in September.
Chris O’Brien, CEO of Irish Street Leagues said: “It’s a starting point, you forget about all your troubles, you play football, you make new friends, you change circles, and you start to believe in yourself.”
After twenty years of changing lives at Irish Street Leagues and giving thousands of people hope through football, it’s evident that a ball can change many, many lives.
Find out more about Irish Street Leagues and their programmes across Ireland.
The Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup will take place from 21-28th September 2025.