The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is set to unveil a symbolic global football team made up of players with refugee or displacement backgrounds, highlighting the potential of young people who have been forced to flee their homes but later found safety and opportunity.<\/p>\n
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The initiative aims to draw attention to the experiences of millions of displaced people around the world and showcase stories of resilience and success.<\/p>\n
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The team will be captained by Alphonso Davies, the Canadian national team captain and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Davies was born in a refugee camp in Ghana after his parents fled the civil war in Liberia before the family was resettled in Canada.<\/p>\n
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According to UNHCR, more than 117 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced from their homes by the end of June 2025 due to conflict, persecution, violence, human rights violations and other events that seriously disrupted public order.<\/p>\n
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Speaking ahead of the announcement, Davies said he was honoured to lead a team of players who share similar experiences.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s truly amazing to lead this symbolic team. With the players that are on this team having a similar background as me, it\u2019s truly something special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo have the same story and to be where they are today speaks for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
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UNHCR says the initiative is intended to demonstrate what can be achieved when displaced people are given protection, support and opportunities to rebuild their lives.<\/p>\n
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The symbolic squad brings together footballers whose journeys from displacement to professional sport serve as a reminder of the contributions refugees can make when they are welcomed and included in their host communities.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15610,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-35021","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"UNHCR is set to unveil a symbolic global football team made up of players with refugee or displacement backgrounds","published_date":"2026-05-21 10:08:06","news_description":"UNHCR is set to unveil a symbolic global football team made up of players with refugee or displacement backgrounds","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35023,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35021\/revisions\/35023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}