Manchester United and England football legend Sir Bobby Charlton took part in this year's Football for Peace, our ninth annual sport and community relations festival. Together with coaches from the Manchester United Foundation, he joined Arab and Jewish children from the Football for Peace project at the Wingate Sports Institute for a special football coaching session.

From 5 -10 July, more than 500 youngsters aged 10-14 years old participated in a football camp that in partnership with 26 communities across the Galilee region of northern Israel involving budding young Jewish and Arab footballers. More than 120 university student sports coaches from the United Kingdom and sport professionals from Israel worked together to deliver a values-based programme designed to teach equity and inclusion, respect, trust and responsibility. The football camp culminated with a final football tournament at Bet Shean Stadium.

This year the project took a further exciting turn with the participation of a group of young footballers and coaches from Jordan. The programme has expanded to the South of the country with a tournament taking place in Beer Sheva.

Football for Peace (F4P) is a sport-based co-existence project for Jewish and Arab children in Israel, that has been running in the Galilee region in the Northof the country since 2001. It is an initiative of British Council Israel and Brighton University (UK), seeking to promote equality, inclusion, respect, trust and responsibility through football. Student coaches from Brighton University visit Israel to work with local sports coaches and co-ordinators and run specially designed football camps for communities in the Galilee.

Football 4 Peace is a partnership project of the British Council, the Israel Sports Authority, Brighton University’s Chelsea School of Sport and the Sports University in Cologne, Germany.

For more information about Football for Peace please contact us.