A cardinal raises a Vatican women’s soccer team

2023-07-10 12:17:59

A selection of women’s national soccer… from Vatican. Mauro Gambetti, Italian cardinal and archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, had the idea last week. Interviewed during a party for the Catholic newspaper ‘Avvenire’ in Potenza, a city in southern Italy, Gambetti replied to the president of the Italian Federation, Gabriele Gravina, that he is considering the project.

“In the European Union there are 55 federations, there is also San Marino; it could be interesting to have number 56”, said Gravina. “In the City of Vatican there is interest, there is enthusiasm”, Gambetti replied. “Maybe it’s easier to get to the women’s national team than the men’s,” added the cardinal. “But we must start with the children. it will take a few years more before they can grow and become the Italian national team,” he concluded, adding that what is needed is “A revolution”.

Some statements that did not go unnoticed in the eyes of the Vaticanists. Football in the Vatican it’s nothing new, even wrote Iacopo Scaramuzzi, a journalist for the Italian newspaper ‘La Repubblica’. “Already in 1521 was disputed the first game with the presence of the then Pope, Leo X”, he recalled. “And, in more recent times, for nearly half a century there has been an amateur championship (the first tournament, in 1972, was won by the newspaper ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ ), and various soccer teams (from the Vatican Museums, the Swiss Guard, the Gendarmerie,…), with their respective Vatican Cups and Super Cups”, added the informant.

religion and sports

The truth is that there are even women’s soccer teams linked to the central headquarters of the administration of the Catholic Church. For example, there is the women’s team at Bambin Gesù, the Vatican’s pediatric hospital, and, since 2019, there is also a female team Vatican. The latter is mainly made up of employees and wives of employees. Even so, for the moment, the Vatican has not reported how and how far its idea of ​​a national team will be carried out. And it may not be so simple, since citizens with vatican passport they do not reach a thousand and the majority are men.

Furthermore, the mixture between the sacred and the profane has not always had happy endings. In 2019, for example, a match between the Vatican team — led by Eugene Tcheugoue from Cameroon — and local rivals ended up being canceled. not Vienna. It happened after players from the women’s team FC Mariahilf They will appear with t-shirts with phrases in support of abortion and the LGBTI community, which aroused the ire of the Vatican soccer players.

Cycling, taekwondo and cricket

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Neither is soccer the only sport that has the presence of women linked to the Holy See. There is also a presence of these teams in the International Cycling UnionWorld Taekwondo and the International Federation of Fell. Finally, this past January, she joined the Vatican Athletics the historic team of cricketThe Vatican St Peter’s Cricket Club.

In fact, in this case too, this sport was practiced in Rome by seminarians from Australia and the United Kingdom already 50 years ago. The novelty is that now people have also joined asian, especially from Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. In previous years, Vatican teams also played against a muslim team, and another mixed team of British players of Jewish, Muslim and Sikh religion. A team, this one, that these days is organizing for a “sports pilgrimage” in Spain.