Midwest Diaspora Cup brings Liberian kickball to Brooklyn Park this weekend

Kickball takes center stage at Noble Sports Park in Brooklyn Park, where the inaugural Midwest Diaspora Cup has paired a women’s kickball tournament with a Men’s Open Cup soccer field and a $5 entry fee. The weekend opened Friday, July 3, and the kickball portion is set for Sunday, July 5, with play beginning between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.

The venue sits at 4701 Oak Grove Pkwy, and that address matters because Brooklyn Park has become one of the clearest anchors for Liberia’s diaspora in the United States. City officials say Brooklyn Park is home to the largest population of Liberians outside Liberia, and a Minnesota community profile puts the statewide Liberian population at about 40,000, concentrated in Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, St. Paul and nearby Twin Cities neighborhoods.

That gives the Cup a different feel from a standard summer tournament. July 4 in the United States slides directly into the run-up to Liberia’s Independence Day on July 26, so the timing lands inside a stretch that already carries national and family meaning for Liberians at home and abroad. Francois Global Sports Network used that calendar to debut the tournament as a sports event and a cultural gathering, with kickball serving as the connector that widens the stage beyond the usual soccer crowd.

FGSN has been around since 2012, and founder Francis O. Nyeekpee, Jr. has pushed it from North Carolina into New Jersey, New York, Georgia and now Minnesota. The model is built around organized space for youth and amateur athletes, and the kickball side is being run with the North America Liberian Women’s Kickball Association, a sign that the event is aimed at more than one age group and more than one entry point into sport.

The game itself carries the kind of history that makes this weekend resonate. Kickball was introduced in Liberia in the 1960s, is played exclusively by women there, and is the country’s second-most popular sport after soccer. The Liberia National Kickball League was established in 1994 during the post-civil-war reconciliation period, when the sport was used to bring women together. That backstory explains why kickball in Brooklyn Park is not a novelty act, but a familiar cultural language carried into a Twin Cities setting.

The July calendar around the Cup shows how quickly that language is expanding. The Organization of Liberians in Minnesota is promoting an Independence Twin Ball at Marriott Northwest in Brooklyn Park for July 24-25, with Friday, July 24 at 6 p.m. CDT as the opening time. If the Midwest Diaspora Cup sticks, Brooklyn Park will not just host a one-off tournament. It will have the bones of an annual Independence-season fixture built around sport, family and Liberian identity.