Sporting Asylum
Sporting Asylum
Sporting Asylum is a radio documentary broadcast on talkSPORT in partnership with the Audio Content Fund. Presented by award-winning documentary filmmaker and author, Hassan Akkad, Sporting Asylum addresses the issue of refugees and immigration through powerful stories told by sportsmen and women who were forced to leave their own homes.
Featuring amazing, personal stories from boxer Bilal Fawaz, who was child-trafficked to the UK and has been fighting deportation for more than 20 years, and women’s football star Nadia Nadia who, but for a wrong turning by a truck carrying refugees, could’ve ended up playing for England instead of Denmark.
Valentyna Veretska is a Ukrainian athlete who has fled war in her country not once, but twice, and who won a marathon in a borrowed pair of shoes just weeks after leaving home. And Maziar Kouhyar, the first Afghan man to ever play professional football in England, gives his perspective as the son of a refugee. Sporting Asylum looks at what happens when your home is no longer safe and you have no choice but to run, and how people rebuild their lives afterwards.
Ready to challenge your perspective on refugees and immigration? Listen to Sporting Asylum and be inspired by the indomitable spirit of those who refuse to be defined by their past.