Can football change the world in its fight against poverty?
By Tom McGowan
A band of heroes unite to change the lives of those in need, to feed the starving and house the homeless.
This is the rationale behind a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) initiative which it hopes will help halve world poverty by 2015.
Arguably the UN faces an uphill struggle.
A recent Oxfam report estimated that the world's richest 85 people share a combined wealth of $1.67 trillion, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.
The World Bank's definition of poverty is based on an income of less than $2 a day, or a calorie intake of less than 2100 calories.
Football stars Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane are the faces of the Match Against Poverty, launched in 2003 and now an annual event aimed at raising funds for the impoverished.
"It's the world's most accessible and equal sport. You can even make your own football," Petra Lantz, director of the UNDP representation office in Geneva, told CNN.
"I've seen that with kids who use paper and string, then they have a football and they pretend that they're Ronaldo or Zidane.
"If you want to reach these kids who are no longer in school, sport is an excellent activity. Football is a sport that is accessible even for those who are poor."
