Blind Soccer Takes Off!
In South Sudan, a soccer league for blind athletes is doing well—and growing.
Light for the World, www.light-for-the-world.org
This 2022 photo shows one of the teams from South Sudan’s Blind Premiere League.
When Jimmy Just Augustin found out he was losing his sight, he gave up something he loved—playing soccer (football). Then, in 2020, he learned that there’s a soccer format for players who are blind. Now age 24, Augustin is the captain of the Kator Blind Football Club in Juba, South Sudan, where he’s earned the nickname Messi after legendary soccer player Lionel Messi.
“Now I play like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, like anyone else,” Augustin told Juba in the Making. “As if we weren’t visually impaired, we manage to control the ball, shoot, and score goals.”
The Kator Blind Football Club is one of four blind soccer teams in South Sudan. Together, they make up the nation’s Blind Premiere Football League, which is supported by Light for the World, an organization that works for disability rights.
Bullen Chol/Light for the World, www.light-for-the-world.org
Blind soccer is somewhat different from traditional soccer. Each team has five members, including the goalkeeper. Four of the players are completely blind. The goalkeeper is partially blind or not blind at all and must communicate with teammates to help them with defense.
The coach stands on the sidelines and helps guide the players on the field, said Simon Madol Akol, who helped establish blind soccer in South Sudan and is now a head coach.
“[The coaches] tell them where the ball is, if they are far from it. Turn right! To the left! Run! There is a player in front of you! Step back!” Akol explained to Juba in the Making.
The ball makes noise as it moves, thanks to rattles that are sewn in, and spectators (people watching the game) are required to be silent so the players can hear the ball. Players must warn their opponents before tackling them by shouting voy, which means “I’m going” in Spanish. (Spanish is used because blind football began in Spain.)
Light for the World, www.light-for-the-world.org
Blind soccer was invented in the 1920s, but it wasn’t adopted by the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) until 1996. Since then, the sport’s popularity has been growing. Blind soccer made its debut at the Paralympics, an international competition for athletes with disabilities, in 2004. In South Sudan, which has been an independent nation since 2011, the sport is still very new. Akol hopes the league will expand in South Sudan, adding more teams as time goes on.
For now, the league is bringing new opportunities to players like Mubarak Joseph Hilary. Hilary had stopped playing soccer after losing his sight at age 15. Then he discovered blind soccer.
“I first thought it was the end of everything for me,” Hilary told Agence France-Presse. “I now know that I can do many things which I thought [were] impossible.”
