Christchurch hosts NZ Police's national football fest

Teams touting names like Italy, Poland, Somalia and Scotland will descend on Christchurch on the weekend of 27th and 28th November to battle for a national winner in ethnic football competition.

Poland (from Wellington), Somalia (from Hutt City), Ireland (from Christchurch), Scotland (from Palmerston North) and Italy (from Nelson) will join other teams for the tournament at the QEII Park on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 November. The teams are made of people of either the same ethnicity or have migrated here from the same country. Some teams choose generic names as they are made up of different ethnicities but hail from the same part of the world.

New Zealand Police established the New Zealand Communities Football Cup (NZCFC) to provide an opportunity for positive interaction amongst ethnic communities.

"Police created this event so we could better connect in a proactive and positive manner with New Zealand's growing ethnic communities," says National Manager, Maori, Pacific and Ethnic Services (MPES), Superintendent Wallace Haumaha. The event was a key initiative from the police ethnic responsiveness strategy adopted in 2005. 

"The vision for the event is to see the tournament being leveraged to connect with ethnic peoples and expand over time to include community based teams from neighbouring Pacific nations where police are involved in peace-building and development work," says Superintendent Haumaha.

The tournament, in its third year, permanently champions the White Ribbon campaign in which participants show support for the fight against domestic violence by wearing white ribbons.

Policing Development Manager for Canterbury District, Inspector John Price says this of the tournament’s White Ribbon support: "It can be difficult connecting mainstream messages with ethnic communities and the tournament provides a key opportunity to say "it's not okay"”. 

Local ethnic football teams will also play several friendlies to add flavour to the event while, on a more serious note, organisers are putting together a youth forum before the tournament to collate feedback on barriers stopping ethnic youth from participation in high level sports in Canterbury.

The 2010 NZCFC is co-hosted and co-funded by Christchurch police and the Christchurch City Council with support from the regional sports trust, Sport Canterbury, Humans Rights Commission and various other organisations.

The magic of football is that it has the power to bring people together despite barriers like language and culture, says Mr John Filsell, Manager Recreation & Sports with the Christchurch City Council.

Christchurch is home to people of over 161 ethnicities, with Asian, Pacific peoples and others making up about 11 percent of the population  (2006 figures).

“We are ourselves are a very ethnically diverse community, and as such, we warmly welcome the teams of various ethnicities into our city for this prestigious event,” says Mr Filsell.

The Council hosts a number of large annual community events in the city that builds on the pride of community and celebration of ethnicity. The events bring together Asians, Pacific peoples and others of various ethnic background to showcase their culture, traditional food and costumes. Some events are listed below.

• Culture Galore
• Christchurch Global Football Festival
• Chinese Lantern Festival
• Latin Dance Festival
• Inner-city Multicultural Festival.

In 2006 Christchurch won a Highly Commended Award for its the Ethnic Football Festival at the New Zealand Recreation Association Outstanding Programme Awards.