BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Few of the 20 young men from the Yucuma tribe had ever left their community in Colombia’s Amazon Forest when they boarded a boat on the Apaporis River last November. An exhausting two-day journey that included two plane flights finally brought them to Bogotá to represent their community at the Campeonato Nacional Más Allá del Balón, a soccer competition for indigenous people.

Organized by the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (ONIC), a political grouping of representatives from Colombia’s 102 indigenous communities, the tournament, whose name translates as “Beyond the Ball National Tournament,” aimed to do more than simply measure soccer prowess. According to ONIC’s Juan Pablo Gutiérrez, its purpose was to highlight issues affecting indigenous people — and to help build a buffer against their youth being forcibly recruited by illegal armed groups.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court had found in 2009 that the country’s armed conflict disproportionately imperiled indigenous people through violence, displacement, forced recruiting and abandonment by the state, leaving at least 30 indigenous groups close to disappearing, either “physically or culturally.”

The suffering of indigenous people in Colombia has deep roots in the colonial period, but continued long after. Until 1991, they were deemed legal minors, living in small tracts of what remained of their ancestral lands, but isolated from the rest of country. The state made little, if any, effort to provide for the basic needs of these communities, which were left largely inaccessible — except to foreign companies, landowners and illegal armed groups.

The 1991 constitution recognized and obliged the state to protect “the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian nation,” and a number of provisions codified the rights of indigenous minorities. These included protecting their communal land ownership, granting them representation in the legislature and requiring that they be consulted before projects, which affect their communities, receive government approval. Still, as the 2009 Court ruling found, much remains to be done.

ONIC conceived the soccer tournament after a research survey found that 70 percent of Colombia’s 2 million indigenous people (about 4 percent of the total population) are aged 25 or younger, and that about half of those were “frustrated athletes.” The organization’s Secretary General, Juvenal Arrieta, who is from the Kankuamo indigenous community, told the organizing committee he would have loved to have played soccer professionally, but never had the opportunity — many isolated indigenous communities lack resources or infrastructure.

Still, the love of the game remains ubiquitous, particularly in communities located near modern towns and cities, where the sport is king. As was the case with other European imports such as the Spanish language and Catholicism, indigenous people living close to urban centers assimilated soccer as part of their culture. And from there, via trade routes, it reached more isolated communities.

The lack of infrastructure obliged the indigenous game to adapt to its surroundings. In the Amazon region, for example, games are typically played barefoot, usually with a ball made from rolled up plastic bags or even leaves in whatever open space can be found. Those matches, which tend to last three hours, are a weekend staple that plays an important communal integration role.

Juan Fernando Ávila Saavedra, representing his northern Colombian Yukpa community at the tournament, says that since there is not enough space in his remote resguardo (communally owned indigenous land), he and his teammates are only able to play “microfútbol,” a five-on-five variant of the game.

The Campeonato allows these players to play with professional equipment and under global rules, and for some to demonstrate the ability to play in Colombia’s professional leagues. It is also a way to integrate them into a wider, national community. “I dream of being a soccer player and playing for the Colombian national team, like anybody else,” says Juan Calvachi from the Azcaíta community.

But, regardless of their enthusiasm, players from indigenous communities have not made an impact on Colombian soccer. Although most Colombians probably have some roots in one or another indigenous community, none of the country’s professional soccer players has identified as indigenous. Federico Spada, an Italian FIFA-licensed sports agent who has spent the past three years scouting Colombia for new talents, said he has yet to see an indigenous player at any competitive level of the game here.

The Campeonato aims to change that, offering a path that would both discourage young indigenous men from joining armed groups, and would hopefully open the doors of professional soccer to some.

The tournament was officially inaugurated in June 2013, but most of its qualifying games were played late last year, when some 700 players represented 82 different indigenous communities at a regional level. The winners of the regional tournaments qualified for a national tournament to be played in April. There, a Colombian Indigenous National Team will also be selected, to compete in the first ever “Copa América” for indigenous people from 12 Latin American countries, to be staged in Chile in May (just a month before the official Copa América that will also be staged there).

The remote location of many of the competing communities made tournament logistics a challenge, although the government funded transportation and provided stadiums, while the Colombian Football Federation sent professional referees.

Even before the finals, the tournament appears to have changed the lives and outlooks of many of the players. Ávila said that even if his team was eliminated and his community’s problems remain largely unchanged, he now believes he can make a living from playing soccer. He moved to the closest town, Becerril, which is 12 hours away by mule, and is training there full-time with an amateur team. “I have always played soccer and I will never leave it,” he said. But for the first time, he feels soccer might be a career choice for people like him: “I think that, God willing, I can get a tryout in a professional team soon.”