FIFA Diversity Award 2019
PlayOnside goes to Milan
In 2019 FIFA™ arranged, for the 4th consecutive year, the FIFA Diversity Award. Since its beginning in 2016, 13 organizations using football as a tool for social change, have had been selected for this prestigious award, and one of them is PlayOnside.
It has never before been an organization from neither Thailand nor Myanmar, the only two Asian organizations previously nominated have been Slum Soccer from India and Uni Papua Football from Indonesia.
To be nominated for the football worlds most prestigious award amongst hundreds of organizations world-wide is a great honor, and an acknowledgment and recognition. PlayOnside was thrilled to get this nomination, and it gave us the opportunity to go to Milan, Italy, to take part of the award ceremony together with the two other nominees, Fútbol Más and Watoto Wasoka.
From PlayOnside, Ole and Javier represented the organization this time, but we hope that next time, if there ever will be, one of our local role-models will get the opportunity to go and represent the organization.
Our board of directors took the opportunity to take part of the ceremony as well. Carlos and Angel from the Spanish PlayOnside board and Øyvind and Stian from the Norwegian PlayOnside board came along, making the PlayOnside delegation in the ceremony substantial.
The nomination gave us the opportunity to meet others individuals and organizations working in the social football field. These networks are very useful for our organization, so we can learn and improve the work we do along the Thai/Burma border.
As an icing of the cake, FIFA invited us to take part of the FIFA BEST Ceremony, where Lionel Messi won the best player of the year for the 5th time. Big congratulations to him for that award, and big congratulations to Futbol Mas for winning the Diversity Award 2019.
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