Top 10 moments from 2024 for the Homeless World Cup Foundation
2024 has been a remarkable year for the Homeless World Cup Foundation, let’s relive some of our best moments from the year.
1. Feature film ‘The Beautiful Game’ is released
The first moment to come to mind has to be the global release of the feature film ‘The Beautiful Game’. Released in March on Netflix, the film which was inspired by hundreds of true stories of players from The Homeless World Cup and starred Bill Nighy and Micheal Ward. The Beautiful watched by millions worldwide bringing a new audience to the Homeless World Cup. It is still available to watch on Netflix.
2. First Homeless World Cup in Asia
2024 saw two firsts for the Homeless World Cup Foundation – a first regional tournament in Africa and the first Homeless World Cup to be held in Asia.
In Seoul, Korea – 52 teams from 38 nations competed at the 19th edition of the Homeless World Cup. It was the first time the tournament has ever been staged in Asia. Mexico took the titles in both the Men’s and Women’s competitions after eight days of dramatic and exhilarating competition.
In the finals, the Mexican Men’s team narrowly beat wildcards England in the dying seconds of the game in a 6-5 thriller, while the Mexican Women’s team won a record 9th Women’s Homeless World Cup showing their dominance across the eight days and beating Romania to take the title.
3. First Africa Women’s Cup
The first Africa Women’s Cup was held in Arusha, Tanzania with eight teams from African nations competing for the inaugural trophy. After conceding the first goal via a penalty in the final against Tanzania, Uganda came back to beat the hosts convincingly and win the first ever Africa Women’s Cup.
The Africa Women’s Cup tournament is part of a two-year collaborative project ‘Football to Protect Vulnerable Women from Exploitation’ between the The Homeless World Cup Foudation and the FIFA Foundation and four delivery partners (Kenya – Vijana Amani Pamoja, Tanzania - Future Stars Academy, Zimbabwe – Young Achievement Sports for Development and Zambia - BUSA) using football to raise awareness of gender-based violence and gender equality.
In 2025, the Africa Women’s Cup will be held in Nairobi, Kenya on 28th-29th June.
4. Partnership agreed with FIFA
In August 2024, The Homeless World Cup Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with FIFA, marking a collaboration between the organisation and the global footballing body. FIFA supported the Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup by providing match balls, medals, referee kits and trophies. Every game from Seoul was also streamed live on FIFA+ and is still available to watch on catch up on the platform.
5. New Women’s trophy revealed
FIFA also helped the Homeless World Cup Foundation design the new Women’s Homeless World Cup Trophy ‘Open Rose’ which was presented to the 16 women’s captains in Seoul by Homeless World Cup Champion Honey Thaljieh.
6. Two new Member Countries join Homeless World Cup network
This year saw two new Member Countries join the Homeless World Cup network, Democratic Republic of Congo and Canada are now official Members and can apply to bring a team to the Homeless World Cup. It is the first time that the Democratic Republic of Congo have ever been represented in the network. They are represented by Fobeworld, while Canada is represented by Canadian Street Soccer Association. There are now 70 Member Countries in the Homeless World Cup network.
7. Cities Ending Homelessness Conference
During the Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup the second Cities Ending Homelessness Conference was held at Hanyang University, bringing together key stakeholders to have meaningful discussions on global and local solutions to homelessness. The conference was very well attended and received with topics ranging from housing solutions to the role of sport in helping to tackle homelessness. Former players Natalie Handley (Wales, Santiago 2014 Homeless World Cup) and Young-Soo Moon (Korea, Oslo 2017 Homeless World Cup) both spoke as part of the conference, sharing their experience of the Homeless World Cup and how it impacted their lives.
8. Homeless World Cup Co-Founder and President Mel Young presented City of Edinburgh Award
In November 2024, Homeless World Cup Co-Founder and President Mel Young was presented with the prestigious City of Edinburgh Award. The Award was established in 2007 to recognise significant figures who have made a positive impact on the city, both nationally and internationally. Previous winners have been former British Olympian Chris Hoy, former Scottish International Rugby player and activist Doddie Weir and authors JK Rowling and Ian Rankin.
9. Indian player Isha Silare makes Homeless World Cup history
At the Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup, Indian player, and captain Isha Silare made history – she became the first player to both play for her team and referee at the tournament. Having completed the Homeless World Cup referee training course led by former Homeless World Cup player turned International Referee Adil Leite she was in the unique position to be able to do both roles.
The Homeless World Cup has run referee training programmes, supporting former players and current participants to gain a new skill and become a Homeless World Cup referee, some of these referees have returned to the Homeless World Cup as a referee.
10. First World United 5k fundraising run
In 2024, the Homeless World Cup Foundation and World United launched a global fundraising campaign, the World United 5k. In April, thousands of runners took part to raise funds for and raise awareness of the Homeless World Cup and our impact.
The World United 5k is returning in 2025, the Homeless World Cup Foundation will share more information on how to take part in this global fundraiser in January next year.
Across the month of May, you can represent your favourite football team, raise funds for the Homeless World Cup Foundation and run anywhere in the world.