The annual football competition has been running for 24 years in all but the last edition took place in Cardiff three years ago, with play having been postponed due to Covid-19
The 2023 edition of the Homeless World Cup is up and running in California as the life-changing annual football tournament returns in its 24th year.
Taking place in state capital Sacramento this time around, the competition has been hosted in locations across the globe, with previous editions also taking the cause to locations in Europe and South America. The brainchild of Scottish social entrepreneur Mel Young, the event was developed to allow people without a home, or people who have recently found themselves in this situation, to represent their respective countries.
During the tournament, participants are also given guidance on how to get their lives back on track, with men’s and women’s teams taking to the field to face off in games of street soccer. The ground-breaking initiative was paused during the Covid-19 pandemic but players headed to the US for this year’s edition, with the last event having taken place in Cardiff back in 2019.
With different countries around the globe having different definitions of homelessness, they must meet a criteria set out by the tournament’s organisers. All players must be over 16-years-old and participants must be at least 16 years old and have been homeless at some point in the last year, meeting their country’s definition of homelessness.