The Winners Cup is back, the youth soccer tournament that overcomes the barriers of cancer
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Around 250 boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 20, divided into ten Italian and six European teams, compete today in Milan in the Winners Cup, a unique and exciting football tournament. The players are in fact young cancer patients, under treatment or who have finished therapy for less than three years, united by a passion for sport and by having been told, one day, “you have a malignant tumor”, “you will have to undergo chemotherapy ”.
Who competes and where
The tournament takes place at the home of the Inter youth sector (at the “KONAMI Youth Development Center in Memory of Giacinto Facchetti”, in via Camillo Sbarbaro 5/7, from 9.00 to 18.00). The teams refer to reference departments pediatric oncology. Bari – Lecce and that of Catania – Palermo, and then again Genoa – Turin, Trento – Padua, Bologna – Rimini – Modena, Pisa – Florence, Aviano-Udine – Trieste, Naples – Perugia and Rome).
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The Winners Cup
Conceived by Dr. Andrea Ferrari, pediatric oncologist of the National Cancer Institute of Milan, in collaboration with FC Internazionale Milano and the Italian Sports Center – Committee of Milan, the Winners Cup is in its fourth edition. The last one, built in 2019, before the pandemic, had attracted the attention of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who had awarded one of the boys (representing all the participants) the prestigious certificate of honor of “Alfiere della Repubblica ”.
The middle world of adolescent and young adult patients
“The Winners Cup – explains the pediatric oncologist Andrea Ferrari – is a unique event in the world, a wonderful celebration for girls and boys who are going through, or have been through, such a difficult period. Looking them in the eye, seeing them running and laughing together, getting angry over a post or a penalty, telling each other their stories, recognizing each other from a scar, on the body or in the soul, or from a different light in the back of the eyes, is a great emotion. If the essence of the Winners Cup is to be a great hymn to life, the goal of the tournament is above all to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that adolescents are special patients, in an age between pediatric oncology and that of the adult. And this sometimes makes access to treatment and inclusion in clinical protocols difficult; and it means that, for the same disease, an adolescent is less likely to recover than a child. Here, the Winners Cup is also a precious tool to be able to talk about this situation, to underline the need for dedicated centers and projects, designed for them”.
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Projects dedicated to teenagers facing cancer
Until a few years ago there were only two specific projects dedicated to adolescents in Italy: the Youth Project of the Cancer Institute of Milan, supported by the Bianca Garavaglia Association (today also committed to supporting the Winners Cup), and the Youth Area of Aviano. Today, starting from the nucleus of young people trained with the football tournament team, with the contribution of local associations and under the aegis of the AIEOP, many Italian centers have given life to structured projects in recent years. And there are national and international routes. “The parents’ associations of the various Italian centers involved – explains Paolo Viti, president of FIAGOP – have a key role in the development of projects dedicated to adolescents. We as parents’ associations, together with our doctors, want to win this challenge of improving treatment for children with cancer”.
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A tournament where everyone wins
The event is organized by FC Internazionale Milano, with the contribution of RIA Money Transfer and the support of AMI (Inter Minority Shareholders), the Italian Sports Center – Committee of Milan and the Teen Work Group of AIEOP (Italian Association of Hematology and Pediatric Oncology), with the precious support of the Bianca Garavaglia Association – which has been supporting the Oncological Pediatrics of the National Cancer Institute of Milan for years – and of FIAGOP (Italian Federation of Parents and Healed Associations Pediatric Oncohaematology). Being to all intents and purposes a European event, the tournament also has the patronage of SIOPE (the European Society for Pediatric Oncology). “We are proud to host this wonderful initiative, demonstrating the attention – says Javier Zanetti, Vice President of FC Internazionale Milano – that the Nerazzurri have always paid to social issues. Inter believes in this project because it believes in sport as a tool for social inclusion, as emotional and psychological support for passions, as a universal message of brotherhood”.
In fact, with the Winners Cup, football becomes a metaphor for life, for the determination of these youngsters in facing their path of illness and in demonstrating that they are just like all their peers, with the same passions. “A tournament for boys and girls who have faced a tumor diagnosis and related treatment in adolescence: something truly unique in the world of sport. It is a great privilege for us to be part of this project because opening seemingly impossible paths in sport is one of the vocations of CSI”, concludes Massimo Achini, President of CSI Milano.
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