African Athlete In Italy

The reason for this topic stems from my interest and passion for sports.  Ever since I was a little kid, my whole life revolved around sports.  Therefore, the topic that most intrigued me when researching the African Diaspora and Italy are the impacts that African immigrants have on the sporting world in Italy.

            One of the most prominent African athletes in Italy is a soccer player named Matteo Ferrari.  Matteo had not lived in Italy his entire life.  He was born in 1979 in Algeria and lived there for about 3 years of his childhood.  His father is Italian but his mother is Guinean.  The family picked up and left to start their new lives in 1983, in a city located in Northern Italy called Ferrara.  He began to play soccer at a very young age, and was dominated competition.  By just the age of 16, Matteo Ferrari was playing professionally for a club in Italy.  I find this to be an extraordinary feat for two reasons.  The first obviously is his age, but the second is because he was one of the only black players in the entire league.  He had to deal with a lot of racism in his early career, and struggled because of it.  Things did get better for Ferrari; he was selected to be apart of the 2000 and 2004 Italian Olympic soccer team.  The dilemma he faced in this situation was that he also qualified to play for the Guinea soccer team.  Ferrari chose to play for Italy, which in my opinion symbolized his feelings of finally belonging in the Italian league as a black soccer player. 

            Ferrari continued to play soccer in Italy and eventually found his way into Major League Soccer.  He is currently playing for the Montreal club, where he is a starting defender.  I feel that although not internationally known as a top player, he is still incredibly successful.  He paved the way for other black Italians to succeed in a predominantly white soccer league.

Sources 

"Defender Matteo Ferrari joins the Impact in California". impactmontreal.com/en (Official Site of the Montreal Impact). 14 February 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2012.

"Know a player of African origin?". BBC News. 1 July 2005. Retrieved 1 March 2012.