The Romanian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv invites you to a youth soccer tourney in the Galilee Arab town of Sakhnin under the auspices of the countries of the European Union plus Switzerland and in cooperation with the Sakhnin Municipality, Sakhnin Soccer Association and Medinat HaKaduregel ("Football State" – Israeli Soccer Association).
The tournament will be for Arab and Jewish Israeli youth (aged 10-17), boys and girls. One group will be deaf youth from Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem. The goal is to bring them to play together and thereby to enhance mutual understanding of the other community.
Each team in the tournament will represent one of the supporting European nations and will wear the colors of that country. The EU-CUP will be a European-backed endeavor to promote interaction between Arab and Jewish youth on the soccer field; identities will be blurred through the concept that they are all representing "Europe". In its inaugural form, the tournament will be a one-day competition. If successful, the format will be expanded in coming years to a three-day encounter where Arab and Jewish teenagers not only come together on the soccer field but spend time together. The Sakhnin coexistence model has moved to the center of the Israeli national agenda because of the town club's success on the soccer field.
The EU-CUP will be under the auspices of the participating European countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland) and will be organized jointly by the Sakhnin Municipality, Sakhnin Soccer Association and Medinat HaKaduregel ("Football State" – Israeli Soccer Association).
