A well-known Edinburgh Kirk is doing its bit to support the world’s homeless when it opens its venue up to participants in this year’s Homeless World Cup.

The Kirkhouse Centre, a drop-in centre for Edinburgh’s homeless, will be providing lunches for over 400 hungry and thirsty players in the Homeless World Cup due to be staged in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens.

The Centre has been working with Cyrenians Edinburgh for the past year training people who either are or have been formerly homeless how to cook. These trainees will be the ones cooking and the serving the food to the participants in the event.

Rev Richard Frazer, the minister at Greyfriars commented: "The support for this venture has been overwhelming. Without seeking any publicity or money, a number of suppliers have agreed to supply as much free ice cream bottled of water and sandwiches as we can use. The response of the business community in Scotland to this venture has been absolutely terrific.

"It is truly inspiring to see people who have been homeless themselves working alongside an army of willing volunteers to ensure that the visitors to the City for this event receive a warm welcome and a good ‘Kirkhouse Feed’ at lunchtime."

Mr Frazer expressed frustration, however, at a number of teams being refused visas for not having bank accounts or being able to prove they could be self-supporting whilst in the UK.

Mr Frazer said he was "utterly appalled" by this justification, especially given the recent Make Poverty History campaign: "In the light of all the efforts by the Make Poverty History campaign to focus attention on poverty in Africa, it seems amazing that Africans should be excluded from this event because they might not be well off enough to have a bank account."

He remained in high spirits, however, saying, "this will still be a wonderful event."