Football scheme bridges religious divide

The project promotes positive contact between two troubled communities

By CNN's Sarah Sultoon

LONDON, England -- An innovative new sports programme will use football to promote positive contact between Muslim and Jewish communities.

The Maimonides Foundation -- a British-based charity that promotes dialogue and co-operation between Jews and Muslims -- is teaming up with Arsenal Football Club for a football tournament designed to unite members of both communities.

One-hundred-and-fifty Muslim and Jewish children recruited from mosques, synagogues, and Muslim and Jewish schools will take part in the training scheme, which culminates in a tournament at the club stadium at Highbury, north London.

Project manager David Krikler told CNN: "With increased hostility in the Middle East, it is vital to encourage voices of moderation … and focus on the things which can unite us.

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"By providing people with a framework to facilitate contact and shared positive experiences, the project seeks to raise awareness on the similarities that can unite the two communities, while recognising the differences which exist," he said.

Harun Miah, a Muslim participant of Bangladeshi origin, told CNN: "The project gives us the opportunity to interact with each other…we can understand them and they can understand our attitudes towards them and how we really behave."

Alan Sefton, head of Arsenal's "Football in the Community" division, will also train 30 Muslim and Jewish adults to continue coaching the teams after the scheme finishes.

"An important part of the programme is to boost the game within their own communities as well," he said.

Jewish participant Doron Kristal, 24, told CNN: "Hopefully this experience for both Jewish and Muslim children will prove to be the first of many activities to bring together youth from two very different yet similar cultures.

Steven Fine, Executive Director of the Foundation, said: "Football is a common language across all cultural divides."

Arsenal's "Football in the Community" department has long been involved in similar projects.

Football: "A common language across all cultural divides"

The premiership side runs regular programmes in the South African townships of Soweto and Alexandra near the city of Johannesburg.

The foundation teamed up with Arsenal in 2000 and 1999 for similar projects. In March 2001, the group took the scheme to northern Israel to encourage contact between young Arabs and Jews living in the Holy Land.

Krikler told CNN that 240 children had so far participated to date in the foundation's football schemes.

"The project is gathering momentum quicker than a shot from Rivaldo's boot, leaving advocates of co-operation and partnership over the moon and pushers of division and conflict sick as a parrot.

"We hope that projects like the football, can provide a framework for normalised, people-to-people contact.

"As part of a long-term programme of activities, such projects will hopefully help reduce tensions and provide a boost to voices of tolerance and co-existence."