The President of the Italian Football Federation, Gabriele Gravina, and the head of the national team delegation, Gianluigi Buffon, were received today by Ambassador Maurizio Massari at the headquarters of Italy's Permanent Representation to the United Nations in New York.

The main theme of the encounter was the role of football in the contemporary global scenario as a valuable vehicle for development, peace, solidarity, and international cooperation. Indeed, focusing on the potential of sport as a remarkable driver of 360-degree sustainability policies is a significant subject at the heart of current multilateral initiatives undertaken by the United Nations. Sharing common goals, albeit in different fields, today's meeting was a crucial initial step towards a more structured collaboration between the FIGC and the Permanent Representation to the United Nations, to be built together with the competent direction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In New York for Spalletti's Azzurri match scheduled for Sunday against Ecuador at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey, Gravina and Buffon also presented to Massari the FIGC 2030 Sustainability Strategy, a tool adopted by the Federation a few months ago with the aim of contributing to the improvement, primarily, of Italian society through a significant shift in the social and environmental policies of the football world. An initiative born from the belief that "given its impact on civil society - the head of FIGC stated - football has a responsibility that goes beyond the game, becoming a tool to improve the general wellbeing of the community."

In light of the guidelines outlined by UEFA through the "Strength Through Unity 2030" Strategy (obviously inspired by the UN 2030 Agenda), last summer the Federation presented its new strategic approach focused on integral sustainability with the goal of becoming increasingly sustainable, inclusive, and socially responsible, focusing on 11 Policies (anti-racism, child protection, equality and inclusion, football and all abilities, health and wellbeing, support for refugees, emergency and rights, circular economy, climate emergency, event sustainability, infrastructure sustainability) and emphasizing 60 clear and monitorable strategic objectives in the medium and long term.

"I am grateful to Ambassador Massari," declared Gravina, "because he has given us the opportunity to further qualify the commitment we have made to the new generations and our stakeholders when we decided to embark on this path. Today's meeting testifies how Italy excels at system-level integration and, above all, how it excels at Community, which is itself a hallmark of our country. By valuing shared strategies and projects, we can contribute to building a more equitable and sustainable society, starting from the contribution that a widely followed sport like football can provide. Our Federation is present and has offered to our Ambassador at the UN the availability of Italian football."

"In a world, unfortunately, divided - Ambassador Massari stated - football is dialogue and inclusion. It builds bridges, and Italy is at the forefront of this, in the Global South and in the small island states. In this way, football represents an asset of foreign policy. The collaboration between the Farnesina and the FIGC proves it."

"Sport has tremendous strength," said Buffon, "often it manages to convey to the masses a virtuous educational model, smoothing over and eliminating hatred and differences, so we try to emphasize the power of sport against sometimes the powerlessness of politics in what we see in the world."