Catholic center partners with Italian soccer team to clean up sports

Published: 2007-10-05

ROME (CNS) -- A Catholic sports association has partnered with a once-scandal-plagued Italian soccer team in an effort to help clean up sports. The Italian Sports Center, the Catholic Action's sports association in Italy, struck an agreement with minor league squad A.C. Ancona to offer it "a new model" for running a sports team based on strong ethics and good business sense, said the center's Oct. 2 press release. Team managers, members, trainers, players and fans will have to adhere to a new ethics code drawn up by the Catholic sports center. Reforms include requiring players to perform a certain number of hours of mandatory volunteer service, a cap on players' salaries, greater transparency in the club's finances, and more family-friendly games that ban unruly, abusive or racist fans and banners. Ticket prices to games will be cut and club profits will be reinvested in projects which help the developing world and Catholic youth in Italy. Archbishop Edoardo Menichelli of Ancona-Osimo, who played in a recent charity match against Italian singers, told the Italian daily La Stampa Oct. 3, "It is a way to moralize soccer and bring back some ethics to a field that has experienced a serious crisis of values."

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