An appeal to Bolzano’s court was recently presented and it is still being there evaluated. The case concerns a young football player from Morocco who arrived in Italy many years ago on basis of family rejoining. He today regularly lives here and his residence papers are family matters ones. He asked to be registered into the FIGC (Italian football players federation) as a young amateur player who is still not paid for his services.
He was denied the enrolment into the FIGC registry on basis of the new version of Immigration consolidated act art. 27 changed by Bossi-Fini law. According to this article (which concerns the entry of non-EU professionals) sportsmen entry can be reduced and determined via quotas. This rule anyway talks about the entry from abroad of professionals.
This young player holds a different condition since he regularly lives with his parents and he therefore appealed to court.
He first of all is an amateur player, he does not hold a contract nor he will soon have one since he is very young and he still is not allowed to. He anyway is regularly living in Italy and his residence papers allow him to different activities. Immigration consolidated act art. 2 states that foreigners who regularly live in Italy have the same civil rights Italian citizens have.
Rules are extremely clear therefore this boy has the right to study and in case he was old enough he could sign working contracts as well. We do not see why he should not be allowed to play football at the same conditions Italian boys do.
The boy’s parents rightly promoted the appeal at Bolzano’s court where legal advisors underlined that a violation of immigration consolidated act art. 43 is ongoing. This article forbids all discriminations to foreigners; discriminations on basis of race, colour, ethnical or national origins, religious belives.
The thing is that there is a will of differently treating people who honestly and regularly live in Italian territory.
We shall follow this quoted appeal and we hope that associations which take care of sustaining migrants will evaluate the chance of being part of the appeal which reports of ongoing discriminations.