Seattle-area Somali soccer club offers kids year-round joy
TUKWILA - "Three touches, three touches, eyes up! Good, good, good! Move away from the defenders!"
Mahamed Kassim isn't a fan cheering at a 2026 FIFA World Cup match. He's a coach at the Somali Health Board Soccer Club, pushing his team to play hard and stay focused during a recent Wednesday evening practice at a grass field at the sprawling Starfire Sports complex.
"This is our World Cup," joked Aisha Tunkara, who watched her sons scrimmage with teammates from the sidelines. Some of the children were preparing for an upcoming 3v3 tournament for a belated Eid al-Adha celebration that weekend.
Soccer fever was here long before the World Cup arrived in Seattle. But the high cost of youth soccer programs across Washington and beyond prices out many would-be players from participating in the world's most popular sport. The Somali Health Board Soccer Club - a free year-round youth program based in Tukwila aimed at supporting low-income and immigrant communities - is trying to close that gap.
The soccer program began casually about a decade ago through the nonprofit Companion Athletics, before the Somali Health Board formally took over the program around 2018, said Mohamed Moalim, the program's director.
That first season, the program had one team with about 17 kids, he said. Last season, which ended earlier this year, the soccer club boasted 11 teams with a total of more than 170 players.
The program hosts annual tryouts, with selected players participating in evening practices twice a week, and tournaments and leagues throughout the year. The club also hosts Saturday drop-in sessions open to the public, where kids who aren't selected for teams can practice. Sometimes up to 100 children will show up to those, Moalim said.
Funded in part by King County's Best Starts for Kids initiative, the Somali Health Board Soccer Club provides uniforms to players but doesn't offer the trappings other pay-to-play youth soccer clubs might, like branded swag or guaranteed practice time on athletic artificial turf.
But what the club does provide - culturally relevant mentorship, a consistent space to train and the jubilation found only in team sports - is invaluable, said Somali Health Board executive director Najma Osman.
"It's about the social emotional well-being," she said "It's a diverse program that brings together many young people from different backgrounds across our region, but it also is a way to, I think, help youth stay connected to their identity while building friendships."
Accommodating various needs
While many of the kids involved are Somali youth from South King County, Osman said, the club welcomes players of all ethnicities. Most come from Latino, Afghan and East African immigrant and refugee communities. Since a majority are Muslim, the club always tries to accommodate families' and players' religious needs, Moalim said.
One example - during Ramadan, the club automatically cancels practices and reaches out to other league teams to request games be rescheduled to the early morning to accommodate players who are fasting, he said.
"We do the heavy lifting without the parents asking," Moalim said.
Back at Starfire Sports, the massive athletic complex with more than a dozen fields where the Sounders used to train, mothers chatted and laughed from the sidelines. Drawstring bags and water bottles lay haphazardly nearby. A group of boys in purple jerseys emblazoned with the club's name shuffled their feet, practicing their dribble.
"Come on, Rooble!" yelled Kassim, who has been coaching teams for the Somali Health Board Soccer Club since he was a teenager. "Come on, Damian, move it. Use your body, use your body, Hassan!
Idil Shifow's son participated in two other soccer programs before joining this one, she said. It turned out to be the best fit, she said.
"He sees a lot of the people that look like him, talk like him, and the coaches are amazing, they're older uncles," Shifow said as she surveyed the field.
"It's familial. Our kids call each other, the mothers, aunties," Tunkara chimed in. "It's just the culture and the community."
'Soccer is always in our DNA'
It's hard to overstate the popularity of soccer in the Somali community, as well as other immigrant communities, said Mohamud Yussuf, a longtime community organizer who came to Seattle in 1996 as a refugee from Somalia.
Yussuf and friends used to watch VHS tapes of old World Cup matches. He recalled watching the Hand of God goal during the 1986 FIFA World Cup on a small black and white TV in Mogadishu, Somalia, surrounded by other fans, debating whether Diego Maradona had punched the ball into the net.
When he and other refugees arrived in Seattle, the sport was a means to form community and create structure for those adjusting to life in the U.S. Yussuf used to watch neighbors play pickup games at Brighton Playfield in Seattle, back when it was mostly just a grass field.
"Soccer is always in our DNA," Yussuf said. "The kids now, because of their parents, now also they are playing soccer."
While local soccer fans may be thrilled Seattle is a World Cup host city, many in the Somali community are wrestling with mixed feelings following the news that the U.S. denied entry to Omar Artan, who was set to be the first referee from Somalia to officiate a World Cup.
Hailed as an inspiration, some felt Artan's selection as a referee was almost akin to the Somalia national team making the tournament. He was denied entry this month by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Miami International Airport.
In protest, the African Youth Sports Academy, another South King County group that hosts soccer training for children, gave up 20 free World Cup tickets it received through a youth access initiative.
"That that guy was denied entry, that's crushing," Yusuf said. "But we are a community who have seen much worse than that. We are resilient, and we move on."
Gifted, talented youth athletes
Despite the disappointment among some, plenty of the soccer club's young players remain eager to cheer on their favorite teams and join in on World Cup festivities. Next month, the club - which also received 40 free tickets through the youth access initiative - will bring a lucky few players and their families to the July 6 round-of-16 match.
Could one of those kids attending their first World Cup match one day be playing on the global stage? It isn't entirely impossible. The Somali Health Board Soccer Club has seen several of its players excel.
Many went on to found the Holac FC, a semiprofessional team that joined the United Premier Soccer League in 2022. The club's under-19 team won the Washington Youth Soccer's Presidents Cup in February. And earlier this year, Abdul Hamadi, a 14-year-old from Burien who began playing with the club when he was about 8, was selected to participate in U.S. Soccer's U-14 Boys' Talent Identification camp this year.
"I think if I didn't start playing with SHB at first, I don't think I would be playing where I am right now," said Hamadi, as he watched his younger brothers practice nearby.
Though the Somali Health Board Soccer Club is helping address youth soccer access, high-quality training remains out of reach for many.
Fees for other soccer clubs or camps can cost thousands of dollars. Athletic artificial turf fields with regulation goals are pricey and competitive to secure. Uniforms alone can cost $400. Meanwhile, the Somali Health Board Soccer Club hosts practices primarily on grass fields, which are more affordable or sometimes free. A few kids show up without cleats.
"If you don't have a kind of strong financial background, your kids will not be able to compete and play high-level sports, even though some of them are gifted, talented youth athletes," said Abdirahman Omar, founder and executive director of the Seattle-based African Center for Excellence and self-proclaimed soccer dad.
Many of the kids in the club hail from the Highline Public Schools, where 57% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, said Charles Fix, a volunteer coach for the club. "None of them are playing Select (clubs) paying $3,000 a year."
Moalim, the program director, would love to add more teams and offer additional coaching. The club currently has one girls team that practices but doesn't participate in leagues, though Moalim hopes to eventually establish multiple competitive girls teams. All these costs add up. The organization is toying with the idea of charging a low registration fee on a sliding scale in the future.
"We don't have backpacks," Moalim said, pointing out one emblazoned with the logo of another youth soccer club as he walked along the field. One day, maybe they will. For now, what they lack in material things, Moalim said, they make up for in heart.
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This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 4:59 PM.