Football spices up the life of Abdihamid Bile

The aim of Socus is promotion to the next divisional level

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By Tomi Tyysteri
     
      Just like all his team-mates, Abdihamid Bile cannot wait for a proper spring, and above all for the football season to kick off. The coming season, which begins at the end of April, will be particularly challenging for Bile’s team Socus, as the promotion earned last fall lifted the team into the fourth division.
      "Practice starts in December, and we have had training two or three times a week. Most of the guys in our team play futsal as well", Socus coach Yusuf Ali explains.
     
Socus is short for Somali Culture and Sport. In addition to the representative team, the club has a second team playing in the seventh division, as well as two junior teams. Socus, which also organises various cultural events, has around 130 members. The majority of the members have a Somali background, but there are immigrants from other countries in the group as well. Many of them are Finnish citizens, just like Bile.
      The 4th division newcomers, who play their home games in Myllypuro, are not daunted by their task this season. Their aim is to progress one level higher again this autumn.
      "We want to be the first immigrant team to play in the third division", Bile, Ali, and team leader Ahmed Mohamoud announce in chorus.
      In the future, the aims will be set even higher, as Bile, 19, reports that there are many extremely talented players on the team. One of their role models is team Assyriska in Sweden: the team’s players are nearly all of immigrant backgrounds, and the team won promotion to the country’s premier league last autumn.
     
Although the majority of Socus’s matches are played in a good atmosphere, Bile admits that sometimes the team needs to listen to less flattering remarks on the field.
      "Well, sometimes we are called names and then kicked in the legs", says Bile, who transferred to Socus just last season. The 19-year-old started to play football at the age of eight, and played for traditional Finnish clubs Gnistan, HJK, and POHU when he was still a junior.
      Football fields are not the only place where people of Somali descent have had to face prejudices. According to the newest statistics, 58 percent of Somali immigrants are unemployed, although many now boast a Finnish education, which is supposedly greatly valued by the local employers.
     
"Getting a job often depends on the colour of your skin. I got a taxi licence a year and a half ago, but finding work was really hard, even though I knew there were plenty of positions available. Now that I am working, I have been asked if mine is a real licensed cab for sure", Yusuf Ali, 34, recounts.
      All three men agree that the situation of immigrants in Finland and in Helsinki has improved clearly over the past few years.
      "There are fewer prejudices", the men summarise.
     
Bile, who is in his second year in senior high school, hopes that there will be as few biases as possible next fall when he tries out for the practice squad of a team playing in the second division. He has met with very unpleasant behaviour earlier while trying out for a new team.
      "They simply did not tell me about the next trial session. I want to be given a chance, because my goal is to go as far as possible in football", Bile says.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.4.2005
     
      Citizens of a total of 158 countries live in Helsinki. This article is one of a series entitled The World in Helsinki, in which the larger groups are presented.

More on this subject:
 BACKGROUND: Largest group of refugees

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Estonians in Helsinki: "Our aim is bilingualism" (5.4.2005)
  Radio Sputnik unites Russian-speakers in Helsinki (22.3.2005)

TOMI TYYSTERI / Helsingin Sanomat
tomi.tyysteri@hs.fi