Having thoroughly enjoyed, been humbled, inspired and made very proud by the Paralympics, I was appalled to discover that if our GB Deaf male and female football teams don’t raise £125,000, they will not get to the Deaflympics 2017 in Turkey.
Photo: GB Deaf Football
Since I know how hard they have worked for qualification this is a bitter pill to swallow.
Incredibly, Great Britain Deaf football teams get NO funding from UK Sport, or the Government or the individual FAs in fact they get F.A.
All coaches, managers and physiotherapists who work with Great Britain Deaf Football are volunteers, and to date, no one has been paid for their hard work.
Why are the deaf teams discriminated against?
Both teams have self-funded their qualification for the Deaflympics, how sad if after all that hard work they cannot afford to get there to compete and represent us.
Photo: GB Deaf Football
GB women’s deaf team won Bronze in the Deaf World Cup in 2016.
Women’s Captain Claire Stancliffe was Sky Sports woman of the month in July and is also an Inclusion Ambassador and coach and great role model, not to mention fund-raiser in chief for Deaf football.
Fund raising is of course made more difficult because there is no GB association for football and Welsh, English and Scottish FAs, are not obliged to support Deaf football (and its GB teams) presumably the same applies to Sport England.
Photo: GB Deaf Football
However, other sports seem to find a way around the whole GB issue and support both teams: hockey (as you may remember it was the GB women’s hockey team that won gold at the Olympics); rugby (GB sevens), netball, rugby league and basketball.
And, just because the football associations are not obliged to support the GB football teams, doesn’t mean it’s OK that they don’t.
Why is it so difficult to get funding for the Deaf football teams? In fact how can it be OK that any team that pulls on a GB shirt, to represent our country at whichever sport, is left to fund itself. This resonates even more painfully because football is the wealthiest sport in the country.
So, enough indignation, how do we resolve this? At first I thought £125,000 an impossible target but then thought for instance, if all the fans attending just one Manchester United and Manchester City home game (assuming grounds are full) gave just £1 then we could raise more than £135,000.
And, thinking in these terms suddenly it becomes achievable.
The teams need to raise £20,000 by December in order to pay for their flights to Turkey.
If each of the teams in the Premier League donated just £1,000 then that would cover the flights. (Perhaps the Premier League, which has just announced itself as a supporter of disability sport could help with a small donation too?)
Gary Lineker has more than 5 million followers on Twitter if each of them donated 3p. that would raise over £150,000.
The question is how can we make any of these things happen and send these two teams to Turkey?
If you can help, feel moved to donate or have any ideas please do get in touch.
Donations can be made via the Deaf Football Justgiving page.
