Derek Otieno
18 July 2005
London — Kenya are among five African teams refused permission to enter the UK to play in the Homeless World Cup in Edinburgh next week.
The eight-man teams were all set to come to the Scottish capital for the tournament which begins on Wednesday. But at the last minute the British home commissions and embassies in their respective countries decided to withhold their visas.
Homeless footballers from Burundi, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya were told they could not travel amid fears they would not return home.
Mel Young, director of the Homeless World Cup, who had sought visa advice from government offices early on in the project, said today that the decision had left him "embarrassed to be British".
He said: "I worry about the future of sporting events in Britain. "And this raises questions about the future of the Olympic Games if they use the same criteria to allow people into the country as they did for the Burundi team. The implication of the Home and Foreign Offices is that only rich people can come and participate."
The Burundi players had to travel to Uganda and then Rwanda to be fingerprinted before being told they could not come.
One man's visa was turned down because he told officials there were four people in his football side. In the tournament teams are supposed to have four players and four on standby. The official apparently thought this was a fib as regular soccer teams are supposed to feature 11 players.
Other teams were apparently refused visas because they did appear to have enough money to support themselves in Edinburgh.
Young said they had suspected there might be problems from the outset because the players were homeless.
He said the African players had been treated "abominably" at their interviews and many of the questions asked to get visas were inane. Young said: "They were rejected because they were poor and couldn't satisfy the British High Commission that they had reason to return to their countries.
"Obviously, if they had jobs, bank accounts, etc, they wouldn't be coming to a Homeless World Cup."
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