Top-class action on show

Multi-racial festival: Sport Against Racism in Ireland (SARI), the Dublin-based organisation best known for its annual multi-racial football festival at Blackhall Place, will launch its first representative teams at a festival on Monday afternoon in Crumlin's Pearse Park.

The highlight of the day's events will be games between the organisation's two new teams, Inter Sari National FC A & B, and local clubs Crumlin United and Drimnagh Celtic.

Players from across Africa, Asia and eastern Europe, including a number who have previously played the game professionally, will participate in the SARI sides and most of the city's eircom League clubs will be there with a view to signing up the more talented performers.

Almost all of the players are currently residing in Ireland and playing with clubs here that draw the majority of their members from the refugee community.

"What we've done," says SARI chairman Frank Buckley, "is to look at the players who have taken part in our annual competitions in the past and get the best 28 or so to train together as two teams.

"There'll be a couple of guest stars as well, including Ugandan international Charles Mbabazi Livingstone of St Patrick's Athletic, and there's one or two coming in for the event too. There's a lad, Dieu Donne Ngengahayo from Burundi, who's flying in from Belgium and he's supposed to be very good - and the goalkeeper in the B team is a Garda with the Garda National Immigration Bureau - but the basic idea is to allow fellas that are living here to show what they can do in an environment that helps them to produce their best."

After Monday's games, Buckley hopes to firm up plans for further matches against league opposition in Drogheda, Cork and Derry.

"There's a lot going on around the country and we have teams of refugees popping up everywhere, Ennis will be well represented this weekend and Kilkenny is another place where things are going well, and our plan is to raise the profile of what is being done with a few more games over the coming months."

A number of league clubs have already expressed interest in some of the players due to take part in Monday's games and one of the goalkeepers involved, a Romanian, is currently training with Shamrock Rovers.

"There's a huge pool of talent within these communities now," says Buckley, whose organisation has been supported by the Know Racism campaign, "and hopefully days like this will help to make people aware of that."

Other events on Monday include a game between an Algerian XI and a team drawn from the travelling community as well a range of other sports including Gaelic games, athletics and boxing (Nicholas Cruz Hernandez, the Cuban who coached Michael Carruth to Olympic gold will be among the special guests) as well as entertainments for children.

Admission is free and the first match kicks off at 1 p.m. with the main game between Crumlin United and Inter Sari National A due to start two hours later.