makāna

The football league was a spontaneous initiative which grew from love of football and a lack of accessible, inclusive, and well-maintained sports fields in Amman, specifically for the immigrant and refugee community. The league was incrementally established, and grew over ten years, since 2012, on the grounds of an empty plot opposite Bait al Rumman in Jabal Amman, near the first circle.

The youth and boys of the migrant community, mainly based in Jabal Amman, had stumbled upon the empty plot in their neighbourhood, and deemed it their gathering place for football games in the evenings. They started sharing the space with the Egyptian community, who usually played on Fridays, and so their games were on Saturday. The games spontaneously gathered different communities around them, the Somalis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Nigerians, all came to participate.

Over time, the good players became captains and started forming teams, there were around seven of them, and that changed the dynamics of the games; they started getting more competitive. Over the years the games grew into a neighbourhood event that takes place once a week, and with multiple teams which use the grounds to practice a few times a week. The space attracted families and neighbours, who all came to watch the matches. There was an active Facebook page on which the football teams were assigned, and on which the matches and scores were advertised, and where the football community keeps up to date not only with their league, but also with worldwide football games.

For ten years, the grounds were used by different groups of people who self organised themselves around it based on their times and availability. They managed to create a cross-cultural and intergenerational place through which the different communities in the area would interact; the youth would organise themselves in teams, they would teach younger players, and the families would come to watch. Unfortunately, the league no longer exists, and was particularly affected by various dynamics which control the space they used.