HUNGERBALL™ is the concept & creation of father and son, Andu and Toma Iordache from Orewa Beach in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a 12-year-old kid growing up in Romania’s small, crowded & vibrant urban spaces, Andu had the idea of a street soccer game whereby kids played all-on-all, with the last one standing wins. Some fifteen years later, he was pleasantly surprised to see local kids were still playing that game on visiting his parents’ place.
Life went on, and the concept was further ‘incubated’ over the next 20 years, finally coming into being in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2015 when the first HUNGERBALL™ arena was designed. Toma came up with the HUNGERBALL™ name inspired by the “Hunger Games” theme, and Andu used his health psychology background to develop games and ways to play to engage groups of different sizes, ages and abilities inclusively. After hundreds of events where HUNGERBALL™ Soccer was enjoyed by many a thousand, in 2017, the HUNGERBALL™ Hockey adaptation was developed with the help of Hockey New Zealand and is already very popular.
From its inception, HUNGERBALL™ expanded into other parts of the world, having already been played in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela. To support the development of Hungerball as a global sport, in October 2016, the HUNGERBALL™ Soccer International Federation (HSIF) was established to govern the HUNGERBALL™ Soccer rules, equipment, and licensing rights for organising HUNGERBALL™ competitions anywhere in the world. Follow the story on the HUNGERBALL™ International Federation – HIF.
