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Church gives Italian soccer team a hand

Pope Benedict XVI is presented with a pennant by Ancona soccer club's Giovanni Langella after his weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. PHOTO: REUTERS

Yes, said Claudio Amicucci, some of the other fans were having some difficulty coming to grips with the idea. "It's such a big and original project," he said.

Amicucci had turned up early to watch his team, AC Ancona, play their first game since learning that they were in effect being taken over by the Roman Catholic church. Representatives of the CSI, the sporting arm of the Italian bishops' conference, joined the board this week after pledging 1.6 million euros (US$2.27 million) a year in new sponsorship. They want new standards of ethics and fairness.

"But since there are no ethics, and there is no fairness, in Italian soccer some of the lads don't really understand," Amicucci said. He was entirely serious. As well he might be. Serie C1, the Italian third division in which Ancona plays, is not renowned for its Christian values.

Typically, clubs are bought up by seemingly prosperous businessmen and, with luck, cash is forthcoming. The side climbs the league table until police arrive to take away the boss, usually following the discovery that he was taking out rather more than he was putting in.

Twice in the past 15 years the biancorossi, as Ancona are called after their red and white strip, have battled their way to Serie A. Twice, they have lost a chairman to a prison cell. Twice, they have fallen back into sporting purgatory.

The CSI's project at Ancona is aiming for the moral rearmament of Italian professional soccer.

Ancona might be suffering in C1 now, but just three years ago the biancorossi were playing Juventus, Milan and Roma. The club had a 28,000-seat ground and a clean balance sheet, having been rescued last time round by a much-respected local entrepreneur. Ancona is in the middle of Italy, so no one could accuse the church of favoring north or south.

The initiative has come at a bleak time for Italy's best-loved sport. A scandal over match-fixing last year saw Juventus relegated and other Seria A sides penalized. Then this year a police officer died in clashes with fans in Sicily.

February's killing proved to many fans what they already knew but often refused to acknowledge -- that hooliganism had taken possession of the Italian game. Surveys indicate up to a million fans who followed the sport last season are not engaging with the current one.

"If someone doesn't take up this challenge in Italy, soccer will soon be playing to empty grounds," said Massimo Achini, a CSI director on the Ancona board.

This is not the only soccer initiative by the church since Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a soccer fan, became the Vatican secretary of state, in effect its prime minister. This year saw the inauguration of the Clericus cup between Vatican-related sides. And Cardinal Bertone has talked of one day fielding a national team to represent the Holy See.

But the CSI's involvement with Ancona is here and now. On Wednesday, at his general audience, the Pope blessed the biancorossi after the captain presented him with the team's strip.

Achini is clear about what happens next. There is to be a complete reorganization of the youth teams, to build for the future and do away with exploitation. No more trading or tying of young players. And families are being lured back, with CSI subsidizing the price of tickets for couples with children.

Ancona's new masters also aim to make better use of the stadium so that it becomes more commercially viable, with talks with Disney on providing entertainment facilities for children.

Squad members, meanwhile, are to be turned into models of virtuous behavior, and will have to set aside a certain number of hours each month for good works.

"There are lots of clubs in which the players sponsor projects," Achini said. "But what really happens is that the manager picks them up a half an hour before and says we're going to this or that hospital. The players have no real idea what they're doing."

Achini envisaged players spending about 10 hours a month with "the elderly, disabled people and lads in the parishes."

"Our aim is not to save soccer, but to give a valid witness. We hope that witness gets picked up by other clubs and used as a sort of template," he said. "What is needed is to bring the true values of sport back into the professional game."

Back at the ground, Claudio Amicucci thought it was a "terrific plan for returning the club to its rightful position". Glancing at CSI executives standing by the touchline, he said: "For them to fulfil their aims, they have to give the side visibility. And to do that they have to put it back at the highest level in the game. But then they get what they want, and we get what we want."

As for the players, they seem to be taking the changes philosophically.

"Better to do a few hours of social work than miss a game," said Simone Rizzato, Ancona's star midfielder.
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