The Beautiful Game, starring Bill Nighy and Micheal Ward, was released by Netflix on March 29. The feature-length drama from the producers of The Banshees of Inisherin tells the story of a young, homeless footballer (Ward) whose coach (Nighy) prepares him to compete in Rome for the Homeless World Cup.

Since 2003, the Homeless World Cup has taken place every year up to 2019, returning post-Covid in 2023, and has been hosted by nations across the world. Over 1.2 million homeless men and women from across 70 countries have taken part, with matches played from Glasgow to Cape Town.

This new movie will put a spotlight on the incredible work this Edinburgh-based charity organisation has done to tackle homelessness across the globe. The Homeless World Cup was previously the subject of the 2008 documentary Kicking It, narrated by Colin Farrell who became an Ambassador of the charity in 2015.

To mark the release of The Beautiful Game, Luath Press is in turn releasing a new edition of Home Game, a book by Homeless World Cup president Mel Young and HWC Trustee Peter Barr that details the history, mission and success of the Homeless World Cup across two decades.

This second edition includes a foreword from bestselling author Val McDermid and an entirely new chapter reflecting on the Cups since the book’s first edition in 2017 and the impact of homelessness in California, where the last Cup was held in 2023 after a three-year absence during Covid.

Order the book here.