American Football Without Barriers (AFWB), a nonprofit created by former Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns tight end Gary Barnidge, former Super Bowl champion offensive tackle Breno Giacomini, and Yum Brands engineer Ahmed Awadallah, to teach American football to men, women and children around the world, will host its seventh-annual football camp February 23-24 at the König-Pilsener-Arena in Oberhausen, Germany.
Barnidge will lead a contingent of current and former NFL players to Germany that includes quarterbacks Brett Hundley (Seattle Seahawks) and Kevin Hogan (Denver Broncos), retired running backDeAngelo Williams (Carolina Panthers and Pittsburgh Steelers) and tight end Jordan Cameron (Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins), wide receiver Cam Meredith (New Orleans Saints), offensive linemen Ben Garland and Alex Mack (both of the Atlanta Falcons), fullback Roosevelt Nix (Pittsburgh), tight end Austin Hooper (Atlanta), defensive linemen Jabaal Sheard (Indianapolis) and Vernon Butler (Carolina), linebacker Barkevious Mingo (Seattle) and defensive backs Chris Milton, Mathias Farley, Nate Hairston and Kenny Moore (all of Indianapolis).
The seventh-annual AFWB Football Camp is completely FREE and it is open to men, women and children of all ages and experience levels. Two camps and a coaching clinic will take place each day on Saturday, Feb. 23 and Sunday, Feb. 24.
In addition, an all-day autograph signing is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 22 from 11 am – 7 pm at the Centro Mall in Oberhausen.
For gaming fans, an EA Sports Madden Football Tournament will take place in-between camp sessions at König-Pilsener-Arena on both Saturday, Feb. 23 and Sunday, Feb. 24, and on Saturday, the 23rd, the first-ever combined meeting of NFL German Fan Clubs will take place at the Centro Mall in Oberhausen. Fan clubs set to attend include the German Birdgang Cardinals, Miami DolFans Germany, Niner Empire Germany, Steelers Nation Germany, Denver Broncos Germany, Cowboysnation Germany, Cincinnati Bengals Fans Germany, German Titans, 49ers Germany, German Seahawkers e.v., Minnesota Vikings fans Germany e.v., Carolina Panthers Germany, German Indianapolis Colts Fans as well as fan clubs representing the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers.
In total, the AFWB contingent will spend nine days in Germany from February 20-28.
AFWB’s contingent will arrive in Dusseldorf on Wednesday, Feb. 20. On Thursday, Feb. 21, AFWB will participate in a community event in conjunction with the Gerald Asamoah Foundation. Asamoah is a former German soccer player from Ghana who suffers from a heart condition, hypertrophic non-obstructive cardiomyopathy, and now runs a foundation which supports children with heart disease.
On Sunday, Feb. 24, AFWB will attend the Borussia Dortmund soccer match against Bayer 04 Leverkusen and the players will meet American soccer sensation Christian Pulisic following the match.
The AFWB contingent is scheduled to travel to Munich on Monday, Feb. 25 where the group is scheduled to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle and the Dachau Concentration Camp. The group will also travel to Austria and spend time in Salzburg and Flachau before returning to the States on Feb. 28.
American Football Without Barriers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to globalizing American football and reaching underprivileged communities with a humanitarian message. In addition to international camps, AFWB hosts several camps in the U.S. aimed at teaching underprivileged kids to play American football. Germany will join China (2013), Brazil (2014), Turkey (2015), Egypt (2016), Finland (2017) and Portugal (2018) as international countries that have hosted AFWB camps. To learn more about American Football Without Barriers, please visit http://afwbcamp.com/.
Looking beyond 2019, AFWB is currently accepting applications for countries interested in hosting a camp in 2020. For more information about hosting an AFWB camp, visit http://afwbcamp.com/ or email camp director Todd Buelow at director@afwbcamp.com. Applications are due by May 30, 2019.