At the Allianz Parque in Sao Paulo, on the same field that Manchester City’s newest signing Gabriel Jesus earned his £27 million (Dh128.2m) price tag and in front of a growing crowd of Brazilian spectators, 22 children from Jerusalem put on a demonstration that showed how sport can bring people from different backgrounds together.
After a series of short exhibition matches in which 11 Arab and 11 Jewish children played in mixed teams and after accompanying Palmeiras’s players to the pitch for their match with Vitoria, the delegation headed up the coast to Rio de Janeiro to visit the Olympic city.
It was aboard a bus, in the dark of night, where the true success of Goal for Peace, a collaboration between the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and Israel-based NGO The Equalizer Programme, could be witnessed.
“We were on the bus and the Jewish kids and the Arab kids started to teach each other songs in both languages and started singing together, laughing and lifting each other on to their shoulders,” Liran Gerassi, executive director of Equalizer, says.
“It was an amazing thing for us to see and we all looked at each other and said ‘wow’, because even we could not have expected that to happen.”
On arrival in Rio, the group visited the CBF headquarters and attended Olympic judo at Carioca Arena, watching Sergiu Toma of the UAE claim bronze in the under-81kg weight class, and Yarden Gerbi of Israel do likewise in under-63kg.
“The nationality of the winners was actually not important,” Mamdouh Qraeen, a football coach with The Equalizer, says. “We don’t pay attention to religions or nationalities, but it will have given great inspiration to the kids to see someone who worked so hard to reach their goals.
“Hopefully, the kids will start believing that they, too, can maybe reach these heights.”
Ayman Gheit, a 13-year-old Arab from Jerusalem, and Yossei Teferi, the 10-year-old brother of Israeli Olympic runner Maru Teferi, live in the same city but speak different languages.
In Brazil, they have become friends and, during a lull in the judo, could be seen joking and having fun as children do.
Walking back through the Olympic Park towards their bus, they sang in unison, in English: “We have a medal in Rio”.
“We have gotten to know each other, talking a little and having a good time,” says Ayman through an Arabic translator.
“We both like Pele. Even though we don’t speak the same language, football has brought us together and helped show that sport can help build peace.”
The objective of the Goal for Peace project is to teach and spread the values of respect, tolerance and coexistence, thereby decreasing prejudice, violence and crime in the young.
The Equalizer, which uses sport to create bonds between disadvantaged children aged between nine and 14, was created seven years ago and has helped forge links between Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, Druze and Bedouin, religious and secular, and immigrants and natives.
“Without exaggeration,” Yossei says. “It has changed my life.”
Gerassi explains: “We wanted to prevent children who maybe had nothing to do after school from roaming the streets, looking for trouble.
“The programme combines football, which they all love, and studies and values, which they love a bit less. They must come to the study centres if they want to participate in the football.
“The children also get values of coexistence and acceptance of each other. An Arab kid can meet a Jewish kid and shake hands with him.
“He can see the other happy after he wins and see the other crying after he loses. And they can understand that, even though my parents or friends have taught me otherwise, he is a human being just like me.”
A couple of days later and back at Carioca Arena, the complications between the societies were laid bare as Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby, an ultra-conservative Salafi, refused to shake the hand of his Israeli opponent Or Sasson after losing his first-round heavyweight bout.
Before last week’s opening ceremony, the Lebanese Olympic team refused to share a bus with their Israeli counterparts, while it is believed Saudi judoka Joud Fahmy forfeited her first match at the Games to avoid facing an Israeli opponent in the next round.
Brazil-born Gabriel Holzhacker, the deputy director of The Equalizer, says such is the tension between Arabs and Jews that managing to organise the trip to Brazil at all is an achievement in itself, especially given the idea was floated six weeks before.
“The situation in Jerusalem is very tense; the past year was especially tense,” he says. “We had several incidents that create inside the child’s head a prejudice: a bad image of the Jews against the Arabs and the Arabs against the Jews. So, even just bringing these children here and arranging a football contest is a great victory.”
Goal for Peace is not the first time Brazilian football was used as a vehicle for changing minds. In 2014, Sport Club Recife urged its supporters to donate their organs after they die so their love of the northeast club could live on in someone else’s body. In a TV commercial made to publicise the campaign, a man waiting for a cornea transplant says: “I promise that your eyes will keep on watching Sport Club Recife.”
Other campaigns include Security Mothers, an initiative that aimed to reduce violence inside stadiums by enrolling fans’ mothers as stewards, and Adopt a Young Fan, which aims to pair candidate parents with at-risk children through support for the same team.
Football, and humanity, are always the common bonds.
sports@thenational.ae
