Jutvari FC
FC Hosanna
Segun Philips, a Nigerian ex-professional football player, started a football project under the name “FC Hosanna” in a Roma-gypsy ghetto of more than 50,000 people, 85% of whom are Turkish Muslim. The team started 15 years ago after an evangelistic outreach in the ghetto. There were no resources, but a vision of changing the lives of young people living in this very poor ghetto for the better, reaching out with the good news of the Gospel.
About 40 children now get football training on a regular basis; one of the groups also competes in a youth league. Most of these boys were picked from the street and never thought they could play football, having been told in the past they weren’t healthy. Through playing in the team they have proven that they can do it, and found hope for the future — through prayer and the power of Jesus.
The team also makes sure its players go to school and study. Roma life circumstances — having no food, clothes or shoes, and no place or materials to do homework — make it difficult for the boys to go to school, and a hard home life with drinking and fighting stands in the way too. Segun helps practically with food and clothes, and the perspective of being a football player. He has a good relationship with the local school: the boys are expected to attend and do their best, and if they do not go to school, they are not allowed to play.
This helped convince parents that their children could join Hosanna, and even a Muslim delegation from the ghetto council — who had doubted the project because of its Christian background — later declared its appreciation.
Character training is one of Segun’s top priorities. There are clear rules and consequences: when one boy was involved in a fight, Segun banned him from playing with the team for several weeks, allowing him to train alone but not take part in matches. Without realising it, these boys are learning important life skills in character, self-discipline and respect.
Segun has also started a church in the ghetto, which many of the team’s boys have joined — significant, since most people in the ghetto are Turkish Roma with a Muslim background. In the past years several of the boys have dedicated their lives to the Lord and some have been baptised.
In 2008, an award-winning documentary was made about the Hosanna team (previously known as FC Jutvari), described as “an ambitious documentary and an inspiring programme, with a very original choice of subject” — the unanimous choice of the jury.