Eighteen boys aged 13 and 14, belonging to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities of the Holy Land, will come together with San Marino under the banner of sport and dialogue. From 23 to 28 August, the Republic will host “A Football for Peace,” a project promoted and organized by UPF San Marino in collaboration with UPF Israel.
The delegation from Israel will be accompanied by educators, coaches and group leaders, spending six days on Titano taking part in training sessions, friendly matches, educational and cultural activities, and moments of exchange with young people from San Marino.
Football will thus become common ground on which boys raised in different communities can get to know one another and work together, at a historical moment when the Holy Land continues to be marked by conflict and deep divisions.
Among the main events, on Monday 24 August the delegation will be received at the Casa del Calcio by the San Marino Football Federation (FSGC) ahead of the sporting activities. On Tuesday 25 August, at 2 p.m., the boys will then be welcomed at the Parva Domus by the Secretariat of State for Industry and Sport.
“With A Football for Peace, we want to give young people a genuine experience of friendship and trust,” explains Giorgio Gasperoni, president of UPF San Marino. “We are not claiming that a football match can resolve complex conflicts. However, we firmly believe that every genuine relationship built between young people represents a precious seed. Before peace can become an agreement, it must first become a human experience.”
The goal is precisely to start from personal relationships: meeting, playing together and learning to know those who come from a different culture or religion, turning sport into a concrete tool for mutual understanding.
The project has the patronage of the Secretariats of State for Foreign Affairs, for Tourism, and for Industry and Sport, with the FSGC collaborating on the sporting and technical aspects.
San Marino thus aims to put its tradition of neutrality and its vocation for dialogue at the service of young people, offering them a safe place in which to live an experience that, at least for a few days, seeks to replace division with the shared language of football.
