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St Ambroeus: Milan football club helping migrants and refugees integrate into Italian society

Football against racism

Fighting racism, the small football club is not situated in a glamorous location with rich, world-famous footballers, rather the very reason for its existence and the main idea behind its foundation is integration.

Saint Ambroeus is the first football team composed of refugees and migrants coming from outside the European Union to be affiliated to the Italian Football Federation in the North of Italy.

“Racism has been around for a long time, it didn’t start with us and it won’t finish with us, but we can fight to end it and solve everything happening at the moment in football,” says Mohamed Diaoune. It’s 20:30 on an early-March evening on the football pitch in the outskirts of Milan where the St Ambroeus team has just finished training, and Mohamed and the other players are getting ready to head back to the centers they call home.

The club was founded 5 years ago with the mission to give migrants and refugees a chance to make friends and to integrate into society, but it’s been fighting against the Italian laws regulating their stay in the country since then.

“There are rules of the Federation that, compared with other federations, don’t allow us, for example, to register all players for bureaucratic reasons, and this is a big limitation,” explains Gian Carlo Duina, St Ambroeus’s co-founder and secretary. “But we’re aware of this, and we’re part of this federation also to change it and put pressure on it so as to make football accessible to everyone.”

Football gives a chance to these refugees to forget about their status. When they are on the pitch, they become defenders and forwards for their teams, and play for the colors of their club.

“We wanted it to be strongly related to Milan because we consider ourselves a team made by boys from Milan, independently from the color of the skin, the country of origin, or the native language,” says Duina. “These boys are from Milan because here they live, work, study, and Milan is their city.”

Armand comes from Cameroon and arrived in Italy three years ago, but when asked where he’s from he answers immediately “Milan.”

“Someone like me must thank Italians because they’ve opened their doors to us,” he says. “We’ve come here and we have the opportunity to play football, do whatever we want. But it depends on the person and their will, you must have patience. We’ve understood that here in Italy you need a lot of will and a lot of patience.”

This football club holds a firm place in its local area and in the whole city of Milan: migrants and refugees now play in the same squad with Italians living in the neighborhood and they can also attend Italian language courses to boost their integration process.

Definitely not just a flashy spot, but the actual essence of grassroots football.

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