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Summary The Homeless Football World Cup has started in Paris, with players from around the world.
Wave your flag goes the football anthem, and they certainly did in Paris on Sunday as the teams of the Homeless World Cup paraded under the Eiffel Tower.The Homeless World Cup unites 64 countries aiming to fight homelessness through football. The founders want to use sport as a means to promote social inclusion of homeless and marginalised people, they say, to try and show them that anything is possible in sport.It is true that scouts from top clubs have attended in the past as they seek to pluck a future big name from such underprivileged backgrounds, but while Spain might be FIFA World Cup champions, they still have to beat the Portuguese at the Homeless World Cup, where last years winners are this years favourites.Through the reinvestment of its profits from the flagship annual tournament, the organisation funds social development work through its network of over 70 national partners in the Homeless World Cup Foundation.It aims to promote its homeless-to-work model to policy makers and the public, which they hope will shift the attitude towards the homeless.Girish Venkatesh from India said there was a lot of homelessness in India and he hoped the public awareness would work even if it were just to create more sportingThe greatest sportsmen on the pitch on Sunday were indeed Portugal, who beat France in the opening game 8-5.
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