AMONG THE END-OF-SEASON football tours taking place at present, few can be as empowering as the one that will leave London destined for Brazil on Wednesday. A representative team of 17 homeless players, most of whom have never been abroad, will embark on an 18-day tour of the South American nation’s shanty towns. They will spend a weekend with Gilberto Silva, the Arsenal player, play a match at the Maracana, and against teams from the favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The venture is being organised by Street League, a scheme for the homeless, refugees and asylum-seekers. The project combines football with courses to help the homeless to receive education, training and employment. Five of the players will be representing England in the first World Cup for the homeless, in Graz, Austria, in July. Eighteen teams, including Brazil and Scotland, are expected to contest the four-a-side tournament.

Gilberto, the Brazil midfield player, experienced poverty as a child and learnt to play football on the streets of Lagoa da Prata in the state of Minas Gerais. At 16, he gave up football for three years to work in a sweet factory and a quarry to help to support his family. The World Cup winner devoted nearly three hours to a training session for homeless players on an artificial pitch in Kennington Park, South London, less than 48 hours before the FA Cup Final. He also sang a Samba song and played the mandolin for them.

“I feel I’ve an opportunity to help them, and that’s very important,” Gilberto said. “I understand what they are going through, though I was not exactly like them. I feel good when I can help them. Maybe they think to themselves: ‘In future I can be like him’.

Gilberto is sponsoring part of the tour. At his expense, the players will spend the weekend of June 7 in his home town, playing local sides, sightseeing and enjoying barbecues. “I think it will be the first time that any club from abroad has gone to my home town,” he said. “I am hoping 5,000 people will come and watch.”

Varig, the Brazilian airline, donated the air tickets last year and Bluefin, a marketing company, and Nike offered sponsorship.

Since its inception two years ago, Street League now boasts 30 teams in London and 16 teams in Leicester. A league of 12 teams began in Glasgow two months ago and there are plans to extend the scheme to Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle. Some players have been invited for trials at professional clubs and others have earned refereeing certificates.

The five-a-side league was the idea of Damien Hatton, a former rugby player who specialised in tropical medicine at University College Hospital, London, and Colin Watson, a former serviceman who was sleeping rough behind the Ministry of Defence in the Strand until two years ago. It has attracted a £500,000 grant from the Football Foundation, a body that receives 5 per cent of the FA Premier League’s broadcasting revenue, and £170,000 from Sport England.

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football