You don’t need a champion to beat stereotypes: the winning Africa of sport

Ten out of 13 athletes are Afro-descendant. They are the players of handball of Cellini Padova. They are one of the examples of the integration of sport in Italy. Their story is told, as is that of Amy Lasu, the captain of the South Sudan national football team, is told in the special edition of the Io sono una voce podcast, produced by Amref Italy, available on the main streaming platforms and on the official website of Amref – Italy.

The Paduan handball girls come from Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The average age of the first team is 19 and the coach, Abderrahman Saadi is also Moroccan. This team also felt the racism fought but precisely with the strength of the group. Sport can be the way to talk about Africa and those of African origins, overcoming stereotypes.

On May 25, Africa Day, in Rome the Africa MEDIAta report was presented by Amref, which analyzes how and to what extent the Italian media describe the continent. War is always the first theme, but sport, the Olympic one, offers a different image. He has been doing it for some time, from that Abebe Bikila that Riccardo Cucchi mentions in the podcast, the athlete who won the marathon in Rome 1960. If that barefoot athlete was in many ways a stereotype, the situation is different in the analyzed cases of the Olympic Games of Tokyo and the Africa Cup of Nations.

“Italian sportsmen who have descent, birth and history in Africa, are by far the best standard-bearers to fight racism and aphrophobiaSaid the president of Coni Giovanni Malagò. As Marcell Jacobs says: in sport everyone starts from the same starting line, without any difference.

In the analysis of the first pages of six newspapers from March 1, 2021 to February 28, 2022, Africa appeared on average 16 times each month. 68% of the news tell about Africa in Italy, therefore speaking of migration and racism. The same goes for television.

Africa in the Tokyo Olympic Games was analyzed through Italian athletes. Of the 384 athletes of the Italian delegation, 21 were of African or African American origin. One of these, Paola Egonu she was chosen as the representative of Europe at the inaugural parade with the IOC flag. Two Marcell Jacobs And Eseosa Fostine Desalu they won gold medals.

The report reports: «Overall, the sports narrative has shown that it knows how to return an image of Africa and Africans afrodescendants much more favorable than that which dominates in other informational frames. The main themes related to the sports narrative of Afro-descendant Italian athletes are hospitality, social inclusion and multiculturalism ».

There Africa Cup of Nations for the first time it received excellent news and television coverage in our country. Among the 70 African and Afro-descendant athletes who play in Serie A, there are 4 who cover leading roles in the Instagram profiles of the 20 clubs: Osimhen, Abraham, Koulibaly, Kessié.

«The sport of the Olympic Games showed us a different Italy, where the Afro-descendants were an integral part of the Italian national team, contributing to important medals. But how much does that strong and widespread image reflect our reality? », He asks himself Paola Crestani, President of Amref Health Africa in Italy, «We cannot accept the idea that Africans and Afro-descendants can only be seen well when they are successful. That gap between the worldwide image of our multi-ethnic Italy and the real one, where a citizenship law has languished for years, must be bridged. Change is taking place, it grows as Afro-descendant children grow up in our classrooms. How long can we still refuse to see it, forcing those children and young people in search of identity and rights to limbo? Our goal, like Amref, is to contribute to inclusion and fight discrimination, with communication, awareness-raising and projects in the area. Sport and the media are powerful allies ».

Alongside the Report, Amref, with the patronage of CONI, launched the campaign You don’t need a champion to beat stereotypesjoined by: Giovanni Soldini (navigator), Raphaela Lukudo (sprinter), Alessandro Florenzi (footballer), Max Sirena (skipper and Team Director Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team), Giancarlo Fisichella (F1 GT Endurance driver), Francesco Gambella ( canoeist), Felix Afena-Gyan (footballer), Martin Castrogiovanni (rugby player), Daisy Osakue (discobola and weightlifter), Hervè Barmasse (mountaineer).