Nujum Sports staged its first Children of Gaza fundraising match on Saturday 1 June 2024, at The Hive, the home of Barnet FC in north London. Anwar El Ghazi’s team beat a Nujum Sports XI captained by Sam Morsy 4-1, in front of a thousands of supporters. The match raised funds for the children in Gaza through Islamic Relief UK’s Gaza Emergency Appeal, and put more than 40 current and former professional footballers on the same pitch.
El Ghazi and Nujum Sports organised the fixture seven months after German club Mainz 05 terminated his contract, in November 2023, over a social media post expressing solidarity with Palestinians. “The loss of my livelihood is nothing when compared to the hell being unleashed on the innocent and vulnerable in Gaza,” he said at the time.
The match
Players walked out holding Palestinian flags in place of the usual club mascots, a gesture organisers said was made in memory of children killed in Gaza during the war. Among the was a spectators Ali, who told us that “its unprecedented what’s happening in front of our eyes. My heart goes out to all the children and the commendable show of support from the players and organisations”.
El Ghazi scored twice and set up a third as his team took a 4-1 win. Reflecting on the day afterwards, he said: “I feel really proud. No child on Earth deserves what’s happening to them right now.” He later called it “the most special one I’ve played in”, adding: “I hope they can one day see that we love them and are cautiously praying and thinking about them”.
Sam Morsy, captaining the Nujum Sports XI, said: “Today wasn’t about politics, it was about humanitarian needs.”
Speaking out and speak up
Nujum Sports founder Ebadur Rahman said: “A special thank you goes out to Anwar El Ghazi for championing this initiative and for his courage in speaking out against injustice. All children need to be protected and cared for, no matter their socioeconomic background, ethnicity, or faith.”
The squads
The teams named for the day ran to more than twenty players each, drawn from well beyond English football. Sam Morsy, then Ipswich Town’s captain, led a Nujum Sports XI that included
Algeria internationals Adlène Guedioura and Raïs M’Bolhi,
Ghana international Jeffrey Schlupp, Morocco’s Ilias Chair,
Zimbabwe’s Benjani Mwaruwari,
Cameroon’s Gaëtan Bong,
Turkey’s Halil Dervişoğlu,
France international Bacary Sagna, and Emile Heskey.
El Ghazi’s XI
Bangladesh Hamza Choudhury, then an England youth international and still four years from his switch to Bangladesh, alongside Netherlands pair Donny van de Beek and Ricardo Kishna, Mali international Abdoulaye Doucouré, Belgium’s Björn Engels, DR Congo’s Britt Assombalonga, Benin’s Rudy Gestede, Iraq international Zidane Iqbal, and former France international Younès Kaboul.
What the funds support
Islamic Relief UK, Nujum Sports’ charity partner for the match, runs a Gaza Emergency Appeal covering food, medical care, clean water and shelter. Tufail Hussain of Islamic Relief UK told the crowd at the time: “We’ve distributed over 18m meals so far, thanks to generous donors in the UK.”
What happened next
In August 2024, El Ghazi announced he would give a considerable amount of his compensation from Mainz to fund projects for children in Gaza, writing that he hoped it would “make life a little more bearable for the children of Gaza.”