A lifeline now in peril – Street Football Wales’ fight for survival

As Wayne Ellaway puts it, “life hadn’t quite gone to plan”. He had spent two decades in and out of prison, “driven by drugs, predominantly crack and heroin”. He first arrived in Cardiff in 2012, recently out of rehab, although he relapsed soon after. Two years later, while staying at a Salvation Army hostel in Cardiff, he first heard about Street Football Wales (SFW), an organisation which organised football sessions and support for people experiencing homelessness, substance misuse and mental health challenges.

He attended a few sessions, although he was still seriously unwell. He had lost use of his lower left leg, while his right arm was in a sling, his skull was fractured and nose broken, “all self-inflicted”. Later in 2014 he began recovery, which lasted “thanks to the help of a lot of people”. The following year, still homeless, he started attending SFW sessions more regularly.

“I’ve been around football all my life, but I was always violent and aggressive, had all this bravado. But Street Football was different,” says Ellaway. “There was laughter, fun, music, food, and entertainment. It was such a buzz, man. It was a really good vibe.”

In 2015, then 39, Ellaway was invited to trial for Wales’s Homeless World Cup team. He was selected and named captain. “Before I knew it, I was singing the national anthem, captain’s armband on, about to play Brazil,” he says. “It’s like – what? What? I was dying two years ago, and now this.” His crowning glory was a hat-trick as Wales recovered from 3-0 down to beat Lithuania 4-3, a match he is keen to point out is available in full on YouTube.

As players can only compete in the Homeless World Cup once, a few months later he was asked to coach at Glasgow 2016. While coaching the Wales women’s team at the 2018 World Cup in Mexico, he met Luisiana, a local volunteer who was working as a guide for the Welsh men’s team.

Once Ellaway returned home – he is keen to stress his professionalism – the pair began messaging. Although the pandemic meant they could not see each other for a long time, in 2022 she moved to Wales and they were quickly married.

The following year he coached Wales as they hosted the Homeless World Cup, only made possible by a £1m donation from Michael Sheen. The tournament was hosted in Bute Park, where he had wasted hour after hopeless hour years earlier. He has now coached the men’s or women’s team in five World Cups, and hopes to do the same in Mexico this summer, if SFW survives that long.

Critical cash flow issues mean SFW will fold at the end of April without £15,000 in funding or donations. SFW now helps about 400 people a year, although Ellaway remembers that figure was 849 in 2015, because he could not believe he was chosen from all of them as captain. They currently run sessions in Cardiff, Rhyl – the most deprived area in Wales – Haverfordwest, Newport and at the University of South Wales campus in Treforest. The Rhyl session is organised by Stephen Falvey, who represented Wales at the 2023 World Cup in Sacramento. A popular session in Merthyr Tydfil has already been discontinued due to lack of funding and support.

In a survey, 97% of players said they believe their mental health would deteriorate without SFW, while 86% believe it would also damage their physical health. Nearly two-thirds (61%) have no other support or access to housing services. “It obviously improves [your mental health],” says Ellaway. “There’s community, connection, you're not in isolation any more. Of course, your life's going to improve.”

“If we had the resource, it could be so much bigger,” says interim director Bethan Thomas. “But what we do have is consistency. When people come, they stay. A lot become volunteers, learn how to coach, become referees. We’ve always had player representation on the board.”

Half of SFW’s current employees are former players, while two women who came through the SFW pathway are now referees with the Homeless World Cup Foundation. The Welsh women’s side finished seventh at the 2025 Homeless World Cup – their highest-ever placing – and were awarded the Fifpro Fair Play Award for volunteering their own kit after the Greek team’s luggage didn’t arrive. “We really bridge that gap between services, support, homelessness, housing, addiction, wellbeing and sport,” says Thomas. “There’s a sense of urgency here that we really want people to understand.”

Ellaway has recently moved house with Luisiana and is about to start a new job with the Salvation Army helping rough sleepers in Newport. “It’s great to donate, but if you can, come down to the sessions,” he says. “Come and see the people, speak to the guys. You are going to change their lives. Come and get involved. If you’re young enough and fit enough, or have got a pair of boots, come down. Have a game. Have a laugh. Come and make it personal.”

You can donate to Street Football Wales here.

Photographs courtesy Street Football Wales