Final tournament of “Fußball trifft Kultur” with over 600 children from 23 cities

Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier mit Karin Plötz, Direktorin der LitCam bei der Verleihung des Bundesverdienstkreuzes

Darmstadt, 10.06.2024 – Team spirit, enjoyment of the game and fair play – that was the motto of the final “Fußball trifft Kultur” (FtK) tournament in 2024.
Around 600 participants in the integrative educational program “Fußball trifft Kultur” travelled to Darmstadt from all over Germany to compete for the coveted trophies in the U10 and U14 age groups.

The 14th FtK final tournament was more than just a sporting showdown.
The event is the annual highlight of the educational program, which offers the more than 700 participants not only soccer training but also skills training, in particular language development.
Training and learning takes place twice a week in two halves at 23 locations across Germany.
The special feature: The program takes place in cooperation with professional clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
They provide a coach for the weekly program and promote the motivation of the participating children through their charisma and unique events such as children’s press conferences, stadium tours or match visits.
In this way, “Fußball trifft Kultur” reaches children from educationally disadvantaged social backgrounds in particular, who often feel less addressed by regular school lessons and thus benefit particularly from the additional promotion of language, movement and culture.
Florian Holzbrecher, Head of Events & CSR at the host of the final tournament, SV Darmstadt 98, describes how “Fußball trifft Kultur” supports the children in the respective locations as follows: “We provide a coach for the weekly program and promote the motivation of the participating children through the charisma of the club and unique events such as children’s press conferences, stadium tours or match visits. It’s great to see how the kids, led by our coach Nils Buhr and teacher Ben Schneider, not only learn in terms of content, but also grow together as a real team and act like one.”

The final tournament in Darmstadt is also representative of the integrative nature of the educational program.
United by the motivating power of soccer, children from a wide range of countries came together for a big soccer festival in which they were able to represent the colors of their respective partner clubs.
The participants not only demonstrated the progress they have made in soccer over the past year, but also experienced solidarity, fair play and teamwork at first hand.
The groups from the Grundschule an der Glinder Au (U10) and Herbert-Grillo-Gesamtschule (U14) were particularly pleased to win on behalf of FC St. Pauli and MSV Duisburg and raise the coveted challenge cup to the sky in Darmstadt.
The groups from Braunschweig (Diesterwegstraße elementary school) and Mainz (IGS Mainz Bretzenheim) were given a special honor when they were awarded the Fair Play Cup for their exemplary behavior.

In addition, a special award was on the program in the year of the European Football Championship in Germany: As part of the FtK-EuropeChallenge, the children spent the past six months exploring different European countries and their cultures.
The results were evaluated by a jury consisting of Matthias Bader (professional footballer at SV Darmstadt 98 and FtK program sponsor), Franziska Fey (Chairwoman of the DFL Foundation), Jonas Kozinowski (author of “Was ist Was – Fußball”), Karin Plötz (Director of LitCam) and Anton Schumacher (Head of Education at Eintracht Frankfurt’s youth development center) and were awarded prizes at the final tournament.
The winners from the Grundschule an der Glinder Au were delighted.

The various exercise stations also provided variety, where children and visitors were able to put their soccer skills to the test at a goal wall and a shot measuring system, among other things, and grow together as a team in various group games.
Dr Nadine Seddig, Head of Programs and Funding Management, who has been supporting FtK with the DFL Foundation as a nationwide partner since 2012, emphasized the central role of the tournament in the success of the project: “The final tournament is the absolute highlight of the FtK program every year. The great anticipation of the participating children is palpable for everyone and the atmosphere on site is characterized by great togetherness. It’s always great to see how everyone comes together to play soccer, have fun and achieve a goal as a team. That makes the tournament a great success again this year!”

Karin Plötz, Director of LitCam gGmbH, which has been implementing the integrative education program since 2007, also drew a positive conclusion: “This year’s final tournament was once again the absolute highlight of the “Fußball trifft Kultur” program year.
The children love showing what they can do by playing soccer.
And they experience how important team spirit, fairness and respect are.
They are proud to be part of such a big tournament.
It’s an unforgettable experience for all the kids.”

The final placings:

U10

1st place: Grundschule an der Glinder Au, Hamburg

2nd place: GGS Flurstraße, Düsseldorf

3rd place: Fasanenhofschule, Stuttgart

4th place: GGS Lustheider Straße, Cologne

U14

1st place: Herbert-Grillo-Schule II, Duisburg

2nd place: Anne-Frank-Schule I, Dortmund

3rd place: IGS Bretzenheim, Mainz

4th place: Bärenkeller II secondary school, Augsburg

“Wir für morgen” award: 17,500 euros for non-profit organization “LitCam”

We are receiving EUR 17,500 in funding for “Fußball trifft Kultur” as part of Union Investment’s “Wir für morgen” charity initiative.

The charity initiative “Wir für morgen” (We for tomorrow) by the fund management company Union Investment focuses on charitable associations and foundations from all over Germany that are committed to social justice, more equal opportunities and better environmental awareness.
“When we announced the awards publicly for the first time in the spring, we would never have dared to dream that over 230 associations and other organizations would apply for the prizes in the environmental, social and educational categories,” said patron and CEO Hans Joachim Reinke.
Under his chairmanship, the jury team, consisting of actor and documentary filmmaker Hannes Jaenicke (Environment category), former professional footballer and foundation founder Neven Subotic (Social category), “Network Opportunities” founder Natalya Nepomnyashcha (Education category) and a youth jury, selected a total of nine winning projects.
The award ceremony took place on November 20 at the Städel in Frankfurt.

In the education category, we received 17,500 euros in funding from Frankfurt.
With the “Fußball trifft Kultur” project, we are promoting educational equality and equal opportunities nationwide through language and reading promotion.
We specifically use the power of soccer to promote children’s communicative and linguistic engagement.
We would like to use the prize money to support a selected “Fußball trifft Kultur” location in Germany.

New Year’s reception 2023

On January 26, 2023, we welcomed sponsors and cooperation partners to the Haus des Buches for our fourth New Year’s reception.

Oliver Schlimm, Head of Human Resources at the Börsenverein Group, hosted the evening in his traditional entertaining manner.
LitCam Director Karin Plötz gave an exciting review of the past year 2022, which had a lot to offer, from our major project “Löwenstark – Fußball trifft Kultur” to the Kulturstadion at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the fifth edition of Lese-Kicker.
A special reason to celebrate was the 15th anniversary of our nationwide educational program “Fußball trifft Kultur”, for which we hosted an illustrious panel discussion.

This consisted of personalities who have shaped FtK and who all represent an important part of our program in different ways: Nia Künzer (former soccer world champion, head of the department for integration, social support and volunteering), Anton Schumacher (pedagogical director of the youth training center at Eintracht Frankfurt) and Jonas Schuster (pedagogical director of the youth training center at 1. FSV Mainz 05).
All three talked about their very own and at the same time unifying experiences from the program – with one or two anecdotes and a little reminiscing about the past.
In addition, a variety of impressions from the youth performance centers were described and Nia Künzer gave exciting insights into her day-to-day work as head of the department responsible for integration.

Following the impressive round of talks, the buffet was opened – special thanks go to Ms. Durgun and her team from Elzem-Cateringservice for the freshly prepared and particularly tasty Anatolian-Oriental dishes.
We would also like to thank Weinhaus Grüneburgweg for providing the drinks that harmoniously accompanied the evening’s finale.

We would like to thank all our guests for the very pleasant exchange and the support they gave us and look forward to seeing you again soon at different locations.

We were there: The #EU BeInclusive Sport Awards 2021

Our educational program “Fußball trifft Kultur” was nominated for the #BeInclusive EU Sport Awards 2021.
Each year, the European Commission presents the awards to programs that use the power of sport to empower socially disadvantaged people.

Together with two other great projects from the International Judo Federation (Hungary) and Politecnico de Milano (Italy), we were nominated for the award in the “Breaking Barriers” category with “Fußball trifft Kultur”.
This category addresses projects and programs that specifically overcome barriers in order to increase diversity of opportunity and enable participation in sport.

The award ceremony took place on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, as an in-person and online event in Brussels’ European Quarter.
We ourselves accepted the personal invitation of the European Commission and attended the event.
Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, finally announced the winners in the evening.
In the end, our Italian co-finalists from the Politecnico di Milano were delighted to receive the winner’s trophy with their outstanding project “GIFT”.
We were also very proud of our shared second place and afterwards had inspiring discussions with inspiring personalities from the nominated project sponsors.

The preliminary phase included short interviews with all finalists.
As part of this, the European Commission writes about “Fußball trifft Kultur”:

Thanks to these doses of inspiration provided by FtK, children from underprivileged areas now feel prouder and more prepared when it comes to learning.
With passion as the main ingredient, “Football meets Culture” has figured out a way to balance education, sport and culture.
These three components of pedagogic advancement are best described by the internal motto, ‘Starts little and develops big’. This is the ultimate goal of FtK: to expand social horizons for children from neglected areas.

Click here for the full website article on “Fußball trifft Kultur” published by the European Commission.

European U21 champion new ambassador for “Fußball trifft Kultur”

Initiated by LitCam gGmbH in 2007 and funded by the DFL Foundation since 2012, the integrative education program aims to use enthusiasm for soccer as a learning motivation to give children from disadvantaged neighborhoods access to language and culture.
At 20 locations across Germany, 32 program groups with children in grades 3 to 6 are supported in cooperation with local professional football clubs.
Participants receive 45 minutes of soccer training and 45 minutes of remedial lessons twice a week for at least one school year, usually with a focus on language development.
In addition, cultural events encourage a change of perspective.

Ridle Baku is delighted to be able to actively support this approach in the future as a nationwide ambassador for “Fußball trifft Kultur”:

“I want to help children who might have a harder time. When Karin Plötz from “Fußball trifft Kultur” approached me with the idea of supporting the program as an ambassador, I was immediately enthusiastic.
Combining the social power of soccer with remedial teaching – I think that’s great.
I would like to help as much as I can.”

In his role as ambassador for the program, Ridle Baku will act in particular as a role model for the children.
He will also be involved in shaping the content of the program.
As soon as the current Corona rules allow, he would like to support the program groups in the schools and the big “Fußball trifft Kultur” final tournament on site.
It is particularly important to him to promote soccer as a unifying, integrative element:

“Football has a unifying power. When you go out onto the pitch, it doesn’t matter where you come from. All that matters is the common goal. You have to learn to integrate into a group and deal with defeat. I think you learn a lot of social skills in team sports that also help you a lot off the pitch.”

To the interview with Ridle Baku

Copyright photo: Adidas