Kids Who Play on an Amputee Soccer Team Are Raising Money for the Men's Division to Go to the Amputee Football World Cup

NEED TO KNOW

• The Junior England Amputee Football Club is raising funds to send the men's team to the World Cup in Mexico
• The men's team is favored to win the WAFF Amputee Football World Cup in Mexico in November, but don't have the funds to attend
• Players say the team has transformed their lives, providing joy and confidence after life-changing amputations

The youngest members of England's amputee soccer squad — made up entirely of children who've had limbs removed due to accidents or illness — are raising money to send a team to compete in the World Cup for their division, where they're heavily favored to win.

The England Amputee Football Association has three divisions — a women's team, a men's team, and the juniors —and it was members from the youngest club that appeared on ITV's This Morning on Monday, May 4. Jeevna, 7, Koda, 5, Lyla, 4, Harry, 11, and Arthur, 12, alongside the head of their football association, Elaine Oakey, shared their fundraising goals to send the men's amputee team to the WAFF Amputee Football World Cup in San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico, from November 13 to 22. 

Oakey's son Jamie, who was born without a foot, plays for the men's team. When he was born, they were told, "he'll never be able to play in a football match. So I thought, 'This can't be right,' " she told the morning show. That's when she began searching for options for her son — and learned about amputee football.

She shared that when young children "come to us, they are a bag of nerves" — until the children play in their first match. "I say to the parents every time, your child will not want to go home on Sunday. And every child always says, 'Mom, please.' Or, 'Dad, please tell us when's the next one? When's the next one?' So, yeah, it's amazing."

Oakey added that "all these children all have one goal in the end and that is to play internationally for their country."

"Unfortunately ... we haven't got the funding for it. We are a charity," she explained, which is why they're focusing on sending the men's team, as "it's an awful lot of money to get us to the World Cup and we're favorites to win, and we don't want to have to pull out."

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The team is raising money via a GoFundMe, which reads, "They desperately need our support to help cover essential costs including travel, accommodation, training camps, and even kit!"

Arthur, who joined the team "two weeks after my amputation," told the morning show that three hours after he was released from the hospital, he "went to play."

"At that time, it was literally what I lived for. Everything else just seemed like it was never-ending, and there was no fun and enjoyment," he said. "But then I'd go to [practice], play football with my friends and then it was just amazing."

The 12-year-old explained that amputee football "made me feel so much better and it made me feel like I was able to have fun again, even though I was in the hospital most of the time."

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