Near downtown Monrovia, soccer players wearing colorful but worn-out jerseys are chasing a ball on a huge, sandy beachlike field. But these players are not ordinary soccer players–they run on crutches and each goalkeeper has only one arm. They are amputees, former combatants in Liberia’s civil wars, many forced to take part in the fighting when they were in their early teens or younger and paid the price with arms and legs lost in fierce battles.
The Liberian national team won the 2008 Amputee African Cup of Nations, which took place in Monrovia in March this year. The tournament’s most valuable player and best goalkeeper were also selected from the Liberian team and their overall success greatly helped raise awareness of the amputee football players among the general public.
Despite the fame and glory they enjoyed during the African Cup, many players have resumed lives of deprivation in extreme poverty.
More than half the players are homeless, barely getting by on small change they earn by begging in front of supermarkets.
“The only good thing happened [by winning the African Cup] was people began to recognize us. They used to see us as below insects, we used to be nothing . . . invisible,” said Junior Kulie, the tournament MVP. “But our lives haven’t changed much. We still have to beg to survive.”
The team traveled to Sierra Leone, Russia and Turkey last year to compete and is scheduled to go to England and the U.S. Such opportunities are a rare privilege in Liberia where most people can only dream of traveling outside Africa.
The costs of traveling are funded by the World Amputee Football federation and the Liberian government, but the funding only covers expenses during the overseas matches. Once the competition ends, so does financial support for the players. Many have no choice but to go back on the streets to beg and sleep in abandoned buildings.
“We are the ones playing but we don’t get paid for it to support our lives. The only way we can survive is begging . . . while Russian players are driving special cars for handicaps,” says a frustrated Jimmy Harrison who was the first captain when the Liberian amputee league was established in 2006.
For a government that has struggled to rebuild the economy since the end of the war, sports recreation and the day-to-day welfare of disabled people are not priorities. Without sponsorship by private corporations, especially from overseas, it will be a challenge to professionalize the league and improve the players’ living standards.
Harrison continued, “But I can’t quit playing. Because of football, people recognize us in a positive way. Most of all, I can forget the hardships and just feel happy when I am playing.”
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