We are gearing up for the 2019 White & Case Football & Volleyball World Cup in Madrid on 6-8 September and will announce our new associated charity partner in the coming weeks. Here, The Reporter looks back at the impact our fundraising had for the 2018 chosen charity, Street Football World.

In recent years, our annual World Cup event has been an opportunity not only to build relationships across the network and have fun, but also to raise money for good causes.

“Street Football World’s focus on using the power of football to engage with children and young people clearly resonated with our people.”
SOPHIE ORR, GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP MANAGER

Last year, a record number of participants (more than 850) from across the network, converged on Frankfurt in September, for a festival of soccer and volleyball.

For months leading up to the event, offices across the network were busy fundraising for our 2018 chosen charity, Street Football World, which is a global charity that uses football-based initiatives to engage, educate and empower young people in 81 countries around the world.

Sophie Orr, Global Citizenship Manager, explains: “We look for charities with a link to sport, but more importantly causes that focus on helping people move away from poverty or learn new life skills. Our chosen charities always work across the world, matching the Firm’s global footprint.

“Street Football World’s focus on using the power of football to engage with children and young people clearly resonated with our people.”

Fourteen offices held fundraising events in the run up to the World Cup weekend. Highlights included our Washington, DC office pitting colleagues against each other in a ping pong tournament and a soccer challenge, while Brussels, Hamburg, Stockholm and Tokyo hosted foosball tournaments.

Astana organized fundraising games, and Los Angeles, London, New York, Stockholm and Washington, DC held dress-down days and ‘wear your sports shirt to work’ days. New York raised money selling t-shirts.

Frankfurt arranged a raffle and cake sale, while Beijing and Seoul held office parties and Stockholm held a week of events, including a traditional crayfish party.

An event to remember

At the World Cup, we raised money through a penalty shoot-out contest where competitors challenged themselves against professional goalkeepers from top national German team Eintracht Frankfurt.

A record 85 players took part and Frankfurt’s Alexander Lang was declared the winner.

Our people purchased raffle tickets for a chance to win exciting prizes, including footballs signed by stars such as Lionel Messi, Xavi, Luis Figo and Andrés Iniesta, and football jerseys signed by Juan Mata, Mats Hummels and Serge Gnabry.

For a good cause

The final total raised topped the €11,000 mark. The money we raised was used to help fund Street Football World’s Football for Good Summit in Berlin this winter.

Street Football World affiliates and guests from the football community gathered from 85 countries and five continents across the globe.

Together with government representatives, they discussed how football can make a contribution to building inclusive, more peaceful, and fairer societies.

The venue for the event was a hangar at Berlin’s Templehof Airport, which was particularly fitting because it was home to 3,000 people during the 2015 migrant crisis.

Issues discussed at the conference included the role sport could play in the integration and social inclusion of refugees.

A heritage of fundraising

We’ve sponsored a variety of causes via the White & Case World Cup since 2014. They include: