In the shadow of the towering stands of Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion just up the road, 16 refugees from around the world are engaged in a frenetic game of football. After a particularly heavy challenge, Shamil Ilqasim, a 19-year-old Yazidi from northern Iraq, limps to the sideline with a beaming smile across his face. “I’ve just hurt my leg but I’ll be back on soon, don’t worry,” Shamil, who is wearing a Dortmund shirt and shorts combined with Hertha Berlin socks, assures me.
He is part of the Welcome to Football initiative that was instigated by the German Football League (DFL) in September 2015 and has led to 24 of the country’s professional clubs running similar schemes to this one. In conjunction with the local amateur side TSC Eintracht Dortmund and with funding from the DFL and the German Children and Youth Foundation, the Bundesliga club’s BVB Foundation has helped to create a project that is now in its third year and allows a group of refugees aged between 18 and 20 to attend a weekly training session at TSC’s stadium, where they also receive a free meal beforehand and a German lesson afterwards.
“It’s really enjoyable,” says Shamil. “We play every week, we eat here and we have everything provided. I’m here with my family but it is more important for those who don’t have any family. It makes us forget some of our problems.
Students from refugee communities attending local schools are rewarded for good behaviour with a year-long place on the course, with organisers also helping to find them jobs and university places afterwards. As well as providing coaching and equipment, Dortmund continue to give away free tickets for their matches after famously inviting 220 refugees to a match in 2015, a number that was reported to have outstripped the total number of Syrians given asylum by the UK in the 18 previous months.
After the launch of the campaign in 2015, several other Bundesliga sides have implemented similar initiatives, including Werder Bremen’s “Stay on the Ball” project and Bayer Leverkusen’s “Bayer 04 does school” – where the focus is on helping refugee children take steps to join a local club. Around 65 training sessions involving around 800 refugees aged between four and 30 take place in Germany every week, with as many as 600 having gone on to play in local amateur leagues.
Wolfgang Euteneuer, a former professional for VfL Bochum who now runs the Welcome to Dortmund charity that provides support to refugees in the city, believes the support of professional clubs has been hugely beneficial.
Ali El-Kadri arrived in Germany in 2015 after fleeing his town just outside Damascus in Syria. It took him several months of travelling on his own via Turkey, Greece and Serbia using whatever means necessary to reach Dortmund. Now 19, he plans to go to university next year and has been using the opportunity to brush up on his football and language skills.
As the training session draws to a close, the group head indoors to a classroom for their hour-long German lesson. With most having already spent the morning working or at college, it is a long day but there is no lack of enthusiasm when the conversation turns to the previous evening’s 2-2 draw between Germany and France in nearby Cologne. Most admit they will be supporting reigning champions Die Mannschaft at the World Cup in Russia next year, although there are a few who clearly have a soft spot for England.
At present, only a handful of clubs in the Premier League such as Arsenal, Everton and Leicester are running regular projects for refugees, while the Football Association donated several free tickets to some for England’s draws with Germany and Brazil at Wembley last month. But after the success of Football Welcomes, a weekend of activities held in April, Naomi Westland from Amnesty International is hoping many more will now follow Germany’s example.
Every player is presented with a bright yellow Dortmund training top at the end of the class before they begin to make their way home, but not before the final word from their coach and mentor Hassan Al Moula, whose family moved to Germany from Lebanon to escape the civil war in the 1980s.