GOOOALS for the World's Children by Horst Cerni

GALS for the World’s Children

Players , Clubs and Benefit Matches

Since the Football World Cup will start on Thursday, 11 June, at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, I thought it would be of interest to look back at UNICEF’s experiences, including mine, at the Azteca forty years ago. In addition, there are two events coming up soon, The UN World Football Day on 25 May, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first Olympic football competition, and on 31 May the Soccer Aid for UNICEF in London, which some of our readers might want to attend.

During the International Year of the Child there were some sports competitions and benefit matches, but my first indirect contact with international soccer federations UEFA and FIFA was at the end of 1979. UNICEF Geneva heard that the Yugoslav sports journalist Branco Perovanovic had organized a benefit match for UNICEF between the World’s best players against the Bundesliga team of Borussia Dortmund in Germany. The UNICEF Director for Europe, Gordon Carter, felt that I was the most appropriate person to represent the organization, and so I travelled to wintery Dortmund. I was not much of a sports enthusiast and so I was amazed that some 35,000 spectators braved the icy weather and enthusiastically supported the teams. The British UEFA “Player of the Year”, Kevin Keegan, had brought his family, including young daughter Laura. Since it was a benefit for the world's children, I suggested to him to go on the pitch with his daughter. I think this started the tradition that children now accompany the players at international matches for the opening ceremony.

The local newspaper “Ruhr-Nachrichten” reported on December 29th of 1979 that, “UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was unable to attend (the match) because of meetings with Khomeini and asked the 'Swiss' Horst Max Cerni, UNICEF Officer from the European Office, to represent him.“

I doubt that Mr. Waldheim knew about this match (or my representation of the UN), but the important thing was that UNICEF received good publicity and a donation of 240,000 Deutschmarks (all players contributed their services free of charge).

I then discussed with Branco how to continue this success. Both the European Association UEFA and the international one, FIFA, endorsed benefit matches and recommended that their members support UNICEF. The first major club to accept this was FC Barcelona, and on 16 December 1980 some 90,000 fans came to Camp Nou and saw Barcelona beat the World selection, called “Humane Stars”, by 3:2.

The Spanish Committee for UNICEF continued to receive support from FC Barcelona, and in 2006 an official agreement was signed under which UNICEF would receive a yearly donation of 1.5 million Euros (the current equivalent of 2 million Euros), plus free publicity with the “Barça’s” jersey displaying the UNICEF logo. In addition, their Argentinian star player, Lionel Messi, became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has actively supported UNICEF. (This happened after my time, so I only saw him on TV and on the UNICEF Web page.).

The next big FIFA match took place at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey on 7 August 1982. I was still stationed in Geneva, so the coordination was a little complicated, but all went well. A total of 76,000 spectators watched the European selection beat the FIFA World All Stars 3:2.

I got more connected to FIFA and attended joint press conferences with the FIFA Secretary General Sepp Blatter. We had a major press gathering in Mexico City in 1986 just prior to the World Cup to announce the next UNICEF Benefit Match to take place at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles the following month. Some 200 journalists attended.

At the World Cup in June, FIFA gave us complimentary passes to see the historic match between Argentina and England. Argentina’s superstar Diego Armando Maradona, used his “magical” hand to direct the ball into England’s net. It became known as “the hand of God”. This way Argentina won and became a finalist (and eventual winner of the World Cup against West Germany at 3:2). 

The match took place at the giant Azteca stadium. The atmosphere was tense, with armed police and military all over. Above us to the left was an Argentine fan section, and they not only made a lot of noise, but also burned the Union Jack. After the match, the military marched off in formation considering “mission accomplished”, but right after that, once the troops had gone, a clash occurred between the Argentine and British “fans” (probably hooligans). They obviously were still trying to fight the Falklands war. Stones and other items were thrown, and we were caught in the middle. Fortunately, we were able to slide down a slope and hide behind a food vendor’s cart, until police arrived and separated the gangs. This was on the 22nd of June of 1986, our daughter Anneliese’s “Sweet 16” birthday. Of course, we celebrated afterwards. 

Since Diego Maradona was considered the best football player at that time and received a lot of media attention, UNICEF thought that soccer stars could also be good spokespersons for the world’s children. With the help of Australian Craig Johnston, who played in the English Premier league, I was able to locate Maradona and visited him at his home in Naples, Italy, where he played at that time for FC Napoli. He agreed to be associated with UNICEF. Diego was one of the star players at the UNICEF benefit match in Los Angeles following the World Cup on 27 July of 1986. As many as 57,600 spectators watched an exciting match between the Americas and the World selections, which ended in a tie but the Americas won on penalties (Diego scored). 

Our Executive Director Jim Grant met Diego before the match and officially named him a Sports Ambassador. He was joined by our long-time and first Ambassador Danny Kaye, who started the match with a ceremonial kick. Unfortunately, in 1991, FIFA suspended Maradona from international games, since he had tested positive. Nevertheless, he was able to get back to work as a coach and play in benefit matches. 

One such match was the yearly charity event in the UK called “Soccer Aid for UNICEF” which has its 20th anniversary celebration this 31st of May in London. It features former soccer stars and celebrities. The event is televised and has raised over 120 million Pounds since 2006. 

There was another successful FIFA benefit match in Munich on 8 October 1991. I don’t know if others followed, but since my retirement in 1995, FIFA matches have benefited diverse groups, like the SOS Children’s Villages etc. 

At the same time, UNDP and the UN have recognized the value of the soccer community to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Therefore, it declared the 25th of May as World Football Day. It’s up to organizations to create events that help children to grow up healthy. On their UN Web site they feature a UNICEF photo of Vietnamese children playing ball.