Wanda and Big Sport - A New Era for Asia

Pic: wsj.com

Welcome back and happy New Year to all our readers!

We aim this year to be a huge one for The Kick Project. As part of our stepping up, we will be filling the blog with more great content - both original and curated - over the coming months. Our topic line is the world of football and how it impacts in areas of peace, reconciliation, community development and social justice.

It's a big topic and there's plenty happening. And plenty to be said.

So please follow this blog, subscribe and interact. Your support is valuable.

We start the year with this piece our founder, James, has written for the ANZ Bluenotes news site. Bluenotes is a dedicated news site run by one of Australia's biggest banks, ANZ.

The article is on the movements of one of Asia's biggest property developers, Wanda Group, into the sports industry.

The implications of this for us here at The Kick Project are that a) Asia is becoming a focal point in the business of major sport promotion and that ever larger sums of money are being found to support major sports - especially football - in Asia and globally and b) We are keen to ensure these funds, while making the games we love better and more professional, are also channeled into supporting grassroots and community-based football in the region and elsewhere.

Comments

Post-UNOSDP - Is the IOC fool's gold?

This is a longer version of an article published on SportandDev.org With the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace closed down by the global body, there is undoubtedly a void in this space in which many of us here work. But, for all the high profile oomph the UNOSDP added to the world of sport for good, it’s passing need not be seen as devastating. For one, the work the UNOSDP has already done in its 16 years of life has laid a platform for the development of sport for social justice. While many of us knew for years that sport had a wider purpose beyond mere business or entertainment, the UNOSDP has provided a base of credibility that may have otherwise taken much longer to establish. While much of the work is, in many ways, still to be done, the UNOSDP has left a positive legacy on which we can all build. More problematic is the shifting of the UNOSDP’s brief to the IOC. Obliging the IOC to administer to the peace and development facets

Statement on Funding for the Rohingya Football Club

We are very pleased to announce that The Kick Project has received a $AUD16,500 donation from the Australian Government to fund a pilot soccer program with Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. The funds, coming through the Australian High Commission in Malaysia, will allow the charity to support the Rohingya Football Club which has become a vital part of the exiled Rohingya community in Kuala Lumpur. The program entails kitting out the team, providing transport to games and establishing a sports and community hub where Rohingya people can access sporting equipment and coaching. Young people, and girls in particular, are the long term focus of the initiative. The Kick Project founder James Rose says the Rohingya are in dire need of assistance. "The UN has called the Rohingya arguably the most persecuted group in the world. They've been forced to flee their homelands in Myanmar, where they have been made stateless by government decree, and many have lost their lives

House of Cards: What Might a Post-FIFA World Look Like?

With news that FIFA bigwigs Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and Jerome Valcke have been "red carded" by FIFA and will have to sit out the next three months, it looks like finally the dead wood is being pruned at the world game HQ. However, worse may be yet come. What can be done to get the people's game back to the people? The current danger is that as the poison is leeched from FIFA, nothing will be left. If corruption is as rife as many - including us here at The Kick Project - believe then more will be shown the door and still more, aware that the gravy train has terminated, will move on voluntarily. The result may well be a vacuum at the heart of the world's most valuable sport. The immediate consequences of this may be no Confederation Championships and no World Cup in three years time or beyond. That's bad enough, but the real concern is who or what will fill this void. There are essentially three likely outcomes. One, would be to hand FIFA over to e

The Kick Project

Search This Blog