What is International Fideration Of Skate Soccer?
Who are we?
International Federation of Skate Soccer is a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the development of the physically challenged members of the society. Our main concern is the polio victims who dangerously beg for alms on the streets all capital cities using locally made skateboards. We want to do whatever can be done to better their living conditions. Then also extend that same help to other physically challenged too. With Skate Soccer, we are able to create an environment by Which it will make it easier to better the living conditions of the physically challenged athletes. We are dedicated to providing these physically challenged individuals a platform to showcase their amazing talents, through Skate Soccer. These events will definitely have a positive impact on them and in turn better their living conditions by getting them off the streets, through setting up income generating projects for each of them. Together we can make a big change in these individuals’ lives.
In mid-2007 after some few years of seeing these physically challenged beggars on the streets of Accra a decision was taken to try and help them. Albert K Frimpong, the initiator of the Sports and Youth Development Organization took a decision to use sports to help ultimately get these physically challenged off the streets. He decided on a sporting activity for them and that was soccer which he named SKATE SOCCER. He later in the years found out that a his form of soccer was played in Nigeria by the physically challenged with a different name. His organization had very different intensions for the people involved as well as had different rules and regulations for the game in Ghana. The name SKATE SOCCER caught on like wild fire and interest around the world has kept growing so much till date.
Since the concept and intentions are very positive and greatly directed at the welfare of the players involved we have had lots of interest expressed in the sport locally and around the world. Many people have seen the progress of the Skate Soccer all round the world, but no company ever came forward to help move it forward. Somewhere in early 2016 the group CEO of Binatone Sunil Lalvani with his MD in Ghana Venu Babu called Albert for a meeting and expressed their interest in what he and his colleagues had been doing for the physically challenged through the Skate Soccer for almost ten years. They expressed interest in financially supporting the project in recognition of the dedicated and selfless job he has done all these years.
Since the concept and intentions are very positive and greatly directed at the welfare of the players involved we have had lots of interest expressed in the sport locally and around the world. Many people have seen the progress of the Skate Soccer all round the world, but no company ever came forward to help move it forward. Somewhere in early 2016 the group CEO of Binatone Sunil Lalvani with his MD in Ghana Venu Babu called Albert for a meeting and expressed their interest in what he and his colleagues had been doing for the physically challenged through the Skate Soccer for almost ten years. They expressed interest in financially supporting the project in recognition of the dedicated and selfless job he has done all these years.
Since then the two parties Albert K Frimpong (Sports and Youth Development Organization) and Sunil Lalvani (Group CEO –global Products (Binatone) came together to form an international body called INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF SKATE SOCCER, IFSS. This federation has taken over the promotion of Skate Soccer at the international level and gradually spreading it throughout the entire world.
The Concept
The SKATE SOCCER League is an innovation and precisely the first of its kind in the Ghana and the world.
This involves the playing of skate Soccer games in selected venues within the capital and other regions of the country. And in every playing arena we will nicely brand with the SPONSORS’s logo and advertise on and all around the playing area.
The ideal and easy way of building this platform has been prepared and kept by the organization. Since we intend to fix and dismantle it after each league game so we always use an easy to fix method.
On this neatly designed and branded easy to fix platform the physically challenged SKATE SOCCER players will exhibit their amazing talents as they play their version of association football, skate soccer.
Since these selected venues are in the Ashanti and Accra mostly heavily patronized by tourist and holiday makers on weekends as well as hundreds of Ghanaians and foreign visitors it will be a great opportunity to promote and exhibit this sport. With this we intend to take the project round the country to all sports facilities or Jubilee parks where we can have large gatherings and also fix the branded platform and exhibit this new sport there.
What is Skate Soccer?
This is a special kind of association football or soccer played by a section of the physically challenged who sit on locally made skateboards and at the same time paddle and play the ball with their hands. Skate soccer is a version of soccer played on (makeshift) skateboards with hands acting as their feet. What validates the use of hands in their version of the beautiful game is that each member of the team has been affected by the debilitating disease polio. And via this disease, each member has suffered the loss of usage of their legs. On these skateboards you see the players exhibit wonderful skill that attract so much attention when its being played.
It is a very wonderful and interesting sport and this is what we are promoting very well to make the athlete involved popular, self-sustaining and make it very difficult for them to go back onto the streets to beg for money. The objective of this SKATESOCCER project is to secure funding to enable us to set all of the many physically challenged under our management in some small-scale businesses and also help all of them have decent jobs that will pay well and enable them to take good care of their families. We also want to help them regain their lost respect among members of society. Most of them have wives and children we want to be able to take care of their children’s education and healthcare.
As an organization, we can only do this if we have the much-needed finance to achieve our aims and objectives of improving the lives of these other people. Most of them live on the streets and are always at the mercy of the rain, weather, negative social vices, and above all thieves. Unfortunately, it is the reality of the situation they are faced with all the time. Imagine their conditions and how they have to compete with able-bodied people for toilets and showers and even transport for their movement. Those who live in so-called proper homes too are in the slums called ZONGO. These are densely populated. These places are always very dirty and the spread of diseases is always on the increase, but it’s far better than living on the streets.
Our Paralympic Dream
IFSS has a big dream of having the SKATESOCCER game made one of the Paralympics sports. We have seen many of the physically challenged sports competed in at that level and we feel and know that our skate soccer is one of the nicest and special physically challenged sports ever created. We are also well aware that all countries the world over with physically challenged people either through POLIO or other forms of disability will be able to play this sport and at the highest level. It is our wish to have it initially as an exhibition sport and later inculcated into the main Paralympics games proper.
World Tour
The Skate Soccer project is one that has gained a lot of global media attention over the years. But despite that it is more appealing and catching when citizens around the world get to witness this beautiful game being played in their own vicinity. Such great and exciting projects get so much appreciated when people get to see with their own eyes and also meet the players and people behind the project and appreciate them. The organization hopes to have some of the big and influential organizations to sponsor and organize as well as sponsor the team from Ghana to go on a world tour. This tour will afford millions of people to have a real view of the sport and also see for themselves that these people are really physically challenged and posses these great skills.