Multicultural soccer leagues spring up

It’s a sunny day at the Wilson Playfields, a group of high schoolers have hopped the fence to play a pickup football game on the main field, another group plays a pickup soccer game. A third group is playing soccer, all of them speaking excitedly in Arabic.

They’re members of a pickup Iraqi soccer team, one of a wide swath of soccer teams that organize based on homeland or ethnic groups.

Multicultural soccer leagues around Kent have sprung up over the past several years, the largest and most prominent being the Liga Azteca, which hosts a slew of different cultural communities in Kent ranging from Iraqis to Latinos.

Jose Gomez, who started the league two years ago, said that his creation started with only a few teams but has ballooned to more than 70 teams, many based on countries.

While teams aren’t strictly divided by country, says Gomez, they tend to attract people from the same country. The Fiji and El Salvador teams might be 70 percent Fijian or El Salvadorian. Largely, the teams divide themselves along cultural and ethnic boundaries in Kent.

The teams meet when they can to practice, and provide another activity for Kent area youth to be involved in outside of the school district.

Aziz Bader, a 16-year-old Kentridge High School junior, manages the Iraqi team.

“It feels really good, we spend good times together,” says Bader. “We practice, we got talent and have good experiences.”

More importantly, the team helps new Iraqis find friends and community in the area, says Bader. All of the players on the team have arrived in Kent, if not from Iraq, from other states. Most play together as a small community, recruited by word of mouth from other Iraqis in school.

“There are many Iraqis in here, and many of the Iraqis, they all like to play soccer, and some of them are new here and don’t have anything to do,” Bader says. “You know when you go somewhere new you feel bored, so we decided to make a team and it keeps us away from the bad things.”

The bad things being drugs, alcohol and other delinquent behaviors.

After playing for three years with the team, Bader has taken over a more managerial role, working to track attendance, set up practice locations and also secure funding.

But it’s not easy for the team to coordinate practices, says Bader, often because of the amount of money needed to secure a field. It’s costly to pay for Kent’s varied fields, and without an organization to boost the fledgling team they’re struck with practicing when they can raise money to rent a field, and playing when they can raise money for league fees.

Bader has signed the team up for a local eight-on-eight league.

“Other teams are really prepared,” says Bader. “They have money to practice, we have frustration getting the money to practice, we can’t always raise money to practice.”

Still, Bader and his teammates are optimistic about getting the team off the ground this year. Being in the new league is a step in the right direction.

“Every time we get to here,” he says, pointing at the first hole in the three-hole notepad he’s holding. “Now,” he says, moving his finger to the halfway point, “we’re here.”