Growing up in Bonteheuwel, Cape Town, South Africa, Nazeem Bartman saw his share of drug dealing, gang violence, and poverty. Soccer was his way out, and through the Faisel Bartman Legacy Foundation he’s working to give the next generation hope for their future.
The foundation is named for Bartman’s father Faisel, a soccer coach who served as a “father figure for all the kids he coached,” Bartman wrote. After Bartman came to the US in 2013 to play college soccer, first at Tyler Apache Junior College and then at the University of South Florida, he would regularly collect and send soccer cleats and other equipment to his father to distribute to kids in need in the neighborhood. That practice continued as he moved into the pro ranks, and he and his father talked about doing something bigger, using soccer to do some good in their community.
Faisel Bartman passed away in March 2020.
“Then I knew I have to make this happen, like we talked about,” he said. “He’s not here to help me with it, but I’m gonna go ahead and start it.”
In 2021, Bartman, now a Forward Madison striker and midfielder, organized a tournament on the fields where he grew up playing.
It started small, with four teams and 60 young players. (“It was just me and my mum organizing it,” Bartman said.) But it went well enough that the next tournament welcomed eight teams, and the fourth annual tournament is happening this December.
The tournament is free for players and clubs in the under-16 age bracket.
The first priority is to give the kids something to look forward to other than gang violence.
“The aim of this tournament is first of all to give them a day to just get away from all of that. Just play,” Bartman said. “Have a tournament where nothing is going to cost them. It’s just them having to show up and play.”
Another aim is to literally feed the kids – every player gets two meals during the tournament, not necessarily a given on any other day.
“A lot of kids come to the tournament without food, didn’t eat that morning, just because that’s how it is at home,” he said. “At least just for that day, try and take that stress away. Let them be free. Give them hope.”
Some of that hope comes from Bartman’s own presence at the tournament.
“Looking at someone like me that came from the exact same area, grew up in the exact same fields that they are playing in, the exact same circumstances that they are going through right now, and to look at me and see, if I was able to to make it and get out the area, that’s possible for them too,” he said.
In more than 10 years of playing in the US, Bartman has built the beginnings of a network in the relatively tight-knit soccer world. He said he aspires to move into the coaching ranks when his playing days are done, and continue to grow that network. He eventually hopes, then, to expand the tournament to include under-19 players and invite college coaches and scouts, all with the hope of giving the players there the opportunity he had to get out through soccer.
As the tournament has grown, so have the expenses. In addition to the food, Bartman now pays professional referees and a groundskeeper to make sure the field is up to standards. He hasn’t set a fundraising goal, but said all donations will be invested directly into the tournament.
“We’ll spend whatever we have” on the tournament, he said. He said the Madison community has always come through in the three years he’s been here.
“It’s a big passion,” he said. “This is something that’s very important to me, my mom and my siblings as well … making sure that my dad’s legacy continues in the community I grew up in.”
