The CSI turned 80 in 2024. It is among the most active Italian organisations that promotes sports which also provide opportunities for people to come together and to look at the world through a lens of peace, solidarity, and fraternity.

Eighty years and still going strong! The Centro Sportivo Italiano (Italian Sport Centre), or CSI, blew out eighty candles last year in celebration of eight decades of dedication to inclusivity and solidarity in sports. The centre was founded back in 1944, but its roots go back even further in time – over 100 years ago – when there was a federation of Catholic sports associations in Italy, but access to sport was still very limited.

Over time, and especially with the start of the Second World War, it became clear that there was a need for a well-rounded education that viewed sport as a tool for human growth, dialogue, and connection for all. On 5 January 1944, on the eve of Rome’s liberation from the German troops, the head office of Catholic Action approved a proposal put forward by Luigi Gedda (1902–2000). A genetics professor and already the president of Catholic Action, Gedda proposed establishing an institution specialised in sports called Centro Sportivo Italiano (CSI). The fundamental principle on which the association was founded, and which it remains devoted to today, is simple: the CSI is promoted by Christians, but it is open to all and collaborates with anyone committed to the use of sport for the benefit of man, woman, and the greater good.

Sport as an Instrument of Recovery After the War

The CSI took its first steps in an Italy that was still divided in two, which needed to be entirely rebuilt after the war, where even sports facilities were showing signs of the war that had just ended. It became increasingly pressing to provide tools that would give people the courage to start believing in – and hoping for – a better future: sport was one of these tools. And it remains so today, at a time when sport has become a widespread phenomenon.

Today the CSI, with its network of over 13,000 sports associations across Italy, promotes sport as an opportunity for education, growth, and people coming together. The centre puts people and the country first, responding to a need for sport that is not just about numbers, but about the cultural, the human, and the social. Although the sports it promotes are intended for all age groups, young people have always been the focal point of the CSI, which has enabled the organisation to help prevent specific social pathologies experienced by young people, such as loneliness, fear, worry, doubt, and deviance. Any athlete can realise their full potential and learn to know their own body: to value it, to appreciate it.

The Value of Sport for Peace and Social Justice

The CSI’s work is not limited to Italy, reaching a little further thanks to the CSI For the World project. The initiative aims to provide access to sports in countries where war and poverty shatter all dreams and risk undoing all hard work. It gives young people and their communities the right to access sport as a form of entertainment, but also as an opportunity for peace and growth. There are countless projects dedicated to this, impacting communities in Cameroon, Zambia, Madagascar, Burundi, Ethiopia, Peru, and Bangladesh. In these countries – with the support of missionaries, NGOs, and local institutions, and according to what the various communities need – CSI For the World provides referees, training courses for coaches, activities for young people and in prisons, and educational sporting events. As such, the CSI’s volunteers are guaranteed a unique and enriching experience.

There are also ‘twinned’ events, coupling affiliate Italian sports associations with parishes, villages, and dioceses on the world’s peripheries. Real planning goes into these projects that, first and foremost, enable directors of sports associations to understand the local population’s lived reality, which CSI For the World learns through study trips to the various countries.

Enrico Mastella, who worked for years as a volunteer in prisons across Vicenza, Italy, has been in charge of the Sport Together Prison Project since 1999. The initiative promotes the use of sport inside prisons as a tool for re-education and social reintegration for the prisoners. It also relies on the involvement of prison officers, magistrates, members of the public, and volunteers, creating opportunities for exchange and release. It is a constant and almost daily commitment, thanks to which Enrico has, in recent years, put the hard world of prison in contact with over 14,000 students and 400 schools across Vicenza. This has been made possible thanks to the support of schools, teachers, and prison management and staff.

And it is thanks to the human sensitivity shown to visiting students and teachers that some of the prisoners – having come to the painful realisation of their mistakes – want to pass on the ‘meaning or lack of meaning’ behind their past behaviours. And, with this ‘passing on’ of experiences and painful feelings, the prisoners take one step closer to their rehabilitation as members of society.

And there are so many more adventures we could recount from the past 80 years, during which it seems the CSI – most say – has taken on a race to the finish line that does not want to leave anyone behind.

Article translated into English by Becca Webley