First transnational ‘Football for Unity’ meeting in Amsterdam

First transnational ‘Football for Unity’ meeting in Amsterdam

The first ‘Football for Unity’ transnational meeting took place in Amsterdam, on the 9th and 10th of March.

‘Football for Unity’ is co-funded by the European Commission and the European Home Affairs. The UEFA Foundation is also the initiator of the project. The project consists of two main parts: legacy sports programmes that will take place in April 2020 till December 2020 and the EURO 2020 awareness-raising festivals that will take place in June/July 2020. The festivals will take place for example in Dublin, London, Budapest, Italy, Munich and also in Amsterdam.

There are four main project objectives:

1. Bring football as a powerful tool for the social inclusion of TCN’s to the attention of the wider European public. The indicator of this objective is: seven EURO 2020 awareness festivals are planned, organised and implemented in EURO 2020 host cities.
2. Capacitate stakeholder groups of relevant actors to plan, organise and implement seven awareness-raising festivals during the UEFA EURO 2020 in strategic locations to showcase and promote European best practice on social inclusion through football. the indicator of this objective is: local stakeholder groups develop and implement joint activities at local or regional level.
3. Improve the social inclusion outcomes of third-country national youth in EURO 2020 host cities via active participation, sport, learning opportunities, and exchanges between host-country and TCN participants, enabling community-building at the local level. The indicator is: TCNs participate in integration activities to acquire skills and become multipliers of European values on and off the pitch.
4. Ensure maximum impact and sustainability of the multi-stakeholder collaborative approach to jointly continue the implementation of activities beyond the UEFA EURO 2020. Indicator being: local stakeholder groups create action plans for utilizing football as a tool for the social inclusion of TCNs.