The Belgian FA is the official association that deals with all matters related to Belgian football and was founded in 1895. We are responsible for the Belgian national teams and furthermore we focus on the development of football in Belgium in collaboration with our Flemish wing Voetbal Vlaanderen and Walloon wing l’Association des Clubs Francophones de Football (ACFF), who are responsible for grassroots football development.
In 2017 the Belgian FA, Voetbal Vlaanderen, ACFF and Pro League (federation for professional clubs) started the project ‘Everyone on the field’. A project that focuses on the integration of refugees and asylum-seekers by using football as a tool for integration. This project was funded by Fedasil and UEFA and supported by several Belgian organisations who work with the target group. After two successful years we already had 40 football clubs that welcomed refugees and asylum-seekers in their club. Some of them also offer language classes before or after the training sessions.
Furthermore, we have developed several tools for clubs to support their work with refugees and asylum-seekers like a football dictionary, a football memory game, a brochure about insurance and affiliations of refugees and a good-practice guide. Additionally, in 2018 we started with a specific trainer course for refugees. Seven refugees succeeded and received a certificate from Voetbal Vlaanderen and ACFF. Thanks to the support of UEFA we can also continue this project in 2019.
We are also very happy and proud to be part of the European FIRE project since this project helps us to broaden our knowledge about the inclusion of refugees via football and to share our own experiences with other football and sport organisations. We believe that this can only have a positive influence on our national project ‘Everyone on the field’ and we hope to reach even more grassroots football clubs thanks to the FIRE project.