KICKING IT tells the compelling story of seven athletes in a sport with billions of fans worldwide -- athletes who share a common condition with one billion of our fellow humans: they are homeless.

In the summer of 2006, while the football world's attention was focused on Germany, thousands of players around the globe were training hard and competing to be part of another World Cup...The Homeless World Cup.

It began in 2001 as a wild idea by a Scot and an Austrian—to give homeless people a chance to change their lives through an international street soccer competition. Five years later, the annual Homeless World Cup had become an internationally recognized sports competition.

The film chronicles one of the most unique sporting events, the 4th Annual Homeless World Cup, where 500 homeless soccer players from 48 nations traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to represent their countries. The players have been knocked down by life, hailing from such disparate parts of the world as war torn Afghanistan, the slums of Kenya, the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland, the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain, and the unforgiving city of St. Petersburg, Russia, where the homeless have no rights or identity.

Win or lose, for these players it would be the journey of a lifetime.

The teams are greeted by the South African President, as they make their spirited entrance in to two newly built street soccer "pitches", located at the precise spot where Nelson Mandela was released from prison—with the glorious Table Mountain as the backdrop. Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu joins the players, declaring homelessness the new "apartheid."

Kicking It follows seven players as they train hard, kick drugs and alcohol, and compete on the soccer pitch. For 7 days of fiercely competitive matches, the teams vie for the championship cups. Despite their homelessness, the players wear the colors of their country with pride.

From shattering misconceptions about the homeless to seeing people living at the edge of society, discover that they can also be winners, the film shows in a real and powerful way that sports can and does change lives.


SUPPORT A TEAM: http://www.globalgiving.com/kickingit.html (read less)

KICKING IT tells the compelling story of seven athletes in a sport with billions of fans worldwide -- athletes who share a common condition with one billion of our fellow humans: they are homeless.

In the summer of 2006, while the football world's attention was focused on Germany, thousands of players around the globe were training hard and competing to be part of another World Cup...The Homeless World Cup.

It began in 2001 as a wild idea by a Scot and an Austrian—to give homeless people a... (read more)