On the occasion of the pilgrimage for the players and their families of the French multi-club football team to Rome, the French football players played a friendly match with priests and seminarians studying in Rome.
(Vatican News Network)The Vatican Athletes’ Association once once more wrote a new chapter in true sportsmanship on March 22. The brethren football team, composed of 18 priests and seminarians from several Pontifical schools in Rome, upholds the spirit of the Clericus Cup and competes with football players from the Variétés Club de France in Rome Marble A friendly match was played at the stadium. Thirty players of the French football team and their families are currently on pilgrimage in Rome.
The Brothers football team has only one Italian player, and most of the players are priests and monks from Africa. Also playing football that day was a staff member of the State Council of the Holy See.
The French Diversity Club pilgrimage group numbered more than 150 people, and they were accompanied to Rome by Emmanuel Gobilliard, Bishop of Digne. The bishop is active with the Vatican Athletes’ Association and is involved in several sports for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Members of the two teams were entertained at the French Embassy in the Holy See on the evening of March 21. On the morning of Wednesday, 22nd, they first attended Mass at the Holy Altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, and then participated in the Wednesday public audience hosted by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square. At 4:30 in the followingnoon, they held a friendly football match at the Marble Stadium in Rome.
Giampaolo Mattei, president of the Vatican Athletes Association, told SciDev.Net that the game was “as we have always wanted to use our arms to play with others, not to beat opponents”. This is what the Pope often said, the opponent is never the enemy.
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