For the first time, the Coverciano Federal Technical Centre opens its doors to art and transforms itself into a true 'gallery of exception', in its own unique way: the unprecedented project is inspired by FIGC President Gabriele Gravina, with the main objective of bringing together two dimensions that are only apparently very distant, art and football, to favour the exchange of reciprocal identities, encouraging a stimulating dialogue that can involve and enthuse the younger generations.

‘Arte e Calcio: contaminiAMOci’, a multi-year project developed in cooperation with Zerynthia - Association for Contemporary Art OdV, envisages the exhibition of works and installations by various internationally renowned contemporary artists in the common spaces, both inside and outside, of the Casa delle Nazionali, encouraging the collaboration of a place that is the symbol of Italian football with different artistic movements.

For the first vernissage, the FIGC and Zerynthia have focused on a debut in grand style and on an absolute main attraction: Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the masters of Arte Povera and 20th-century Art, welcomed with enthusiasm also by the Azzurri and by the coach Roberto Mancini, who this morning unveiled his work ‘Il Calcio nella Formula della Creazione’ (Football in the Formula of Creation), which from today will adorn the entrance of the Federal Technical Centre, accompanying the entrance of athletes and visitors.

From now until the end of December 2023, the Centro Tecnico Federale will host a series of installations created for the occasion by the artist, which have as the centre-piece the the Formula of Creation, a central theme of his research, dedicated to the game of football. The artist starts with the mathematical sign of infinity, to which he adds a third circle in the centre. The two outer circles represent all diversities and antinomies, including nature and artifice. The central one is the interpenetration between the opposite circles and represents the generative womb of the new humanity. The work consists of 100 marble spheres, reminiscent of footballs.

A union between two true Italian excellences, marble and the Azzurri, renewing another extraordinary collaboration, inaugurated with the design of the new adidas jersey for the Italian national football team, which recalls precisely the veining of a unique material, the quarrying and working of which symbolises sacrifice and art. Thanks to the collaboration between the FIGC and Sa.Ge.Van. Marmi in Carrara there will be further points of contact between the two, culminating in a visit directly to the quarry by a delegation of Mancini's national team.

"In addition to being the Home of the National Teams, the training of coaches, referees and managers of Italian football, the Coverciano Federal Technical Centre is now also an extraordinary place of Art," said FIGC president Gravina, who then continued: "Opening the Coverciano Centre to a wider public and not only to football fans enriches the virtuous process of comparison with other worlds, with the aim of making football more open, more modern and more integrated with contemporary society. Football is popular culture, it is an integral part of the identity formation of our country's civil conscience and, thanks to this project, it offers itself as a tool for an exchange of value and values for the benefit of girls and boys, who represent our future. I would like to thank Zerynthia and, in particular, Maestro Pistoletto for their availability and enthusiasm, thanks to whom we are taking a fundamental step towards the completion of the cultural revolution that I have been promoting since my arrival as federal president.”

The cultural event ‘Arte e Calcio: contaminiAMOci’, will also contribute to one of the main objectives that the FIGC, thanks also to the support of the Municipality of Florence, represented today at the inauguration of the event by the Mayor Dario Nardella, has set for the near future: to open Coverciano to the city, making a series of spaces of the Centre more and more accessible to the citizens, who want to establish Coverciano as an integral and inclusive part of the community development project and not as a closed and impenetrable place, as it has been perceived in the past. The City of Florence's recent approval of the Coverciano redevelopment plan, proposed by the FIGC and Federcalcio Servizi, is in fact based precisely on this new aspiration of the Technical Centre, which aims to transform itself into a multifunctional centre of excellence at world level, while still preserving the Florentine cultural and sporting heritage, as desired by the founders Luigi Ridolfi Vay da Verrazzano and Dante Berretti and the architects Francesco Tiezzi and Arnaldo Degli Innocenti from the very beginning.

In this sense, thanks to the involvement of various institutional stakeholders, schools and cultural associations, the project will further strengthen the link with the Florentine territory. And, at the same time, it will help to promote contemporary art and the messages that the works express on issues that are increasingly relevant for the future of the world, such as respect for human rights and sustainable development, among the youngest. Football, in this sense, becomes in its own way a cultural tool, which uses its language and its ability to address young people, to amplify the words that the artists enclose in their works towards a global audience.

“This initiative,” emphasised the Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella, “represents an opportunity for cultural reflection on football. And it is the 'humanistic' aspect of the sport most loved by Italians that is the important aspect of a project that emphasises how art and football, immersive and unique experiences of their kind, have a unique point: maximum freedom of expression. Both, moreover, are a global language capable of uniting different cultures and personalities. The combination of art and sport became inseparable in Greece, so much so that competitions and gymnastic exercises were a favourite theme for artists. It can therefore be said that one, art, is the complement of the other, sport, and that they are a mutual source of inspiration, from the time of the ancient Greeks to today and in the years to come. A sport wins more and more if it plays with fields outside the competitive arenas, especially with art. And this initiative, which takes place in the 'University of Italian Football' shows us that the link between football and art is a link that offers endless possibilities for creative development.”

Il calcio nella formula della creazione. The itinerary opens with a large permanent installation at the entrance to Coverciano, 'Football in the Formula of Creation', made of 100 marble spheres, reminiscent of footballs. The spheres are all different colours, made of marble from different parts of the world, in reference to the many teams in the game of football.

Inside, the exhibition houses the Piccolo Tempio del Calcio nella Formula della Creazione’  (Small Temple of Football in the Formula of Creation) in which the formula is set in relief on a mirrored surface with a ball in the centre.

In the adjacent room we are greeted by the historical work ‘Il Mappamondo’ (The World Map), a structure of metal meridians and parallels containing a sphere of newspapers one metre in diameter.

In the corridor leading to the inner rooms, images of 28 symbols of creation from around the world hang from the ceiling like flags.

Next to the 'Vittorio Pozzo' pitch, where the Azzurri usually train to prepare for their international commitments, is a large billboard with the symbol of creation in vermilion.

On display in the Museo del Calcio is a work made of two spheres the size of a football. One is reflected in the other creating a third sphere which is the representation of football in the formula. The formula of creation, expressed in numbers, is as follows: 1 and 1= 3 for the game of football means that 1 and 1 are the 2 teams and 3 is the event of the match. As Pistoletto himself points out, "When I explain to the children the three circles of the Symbol of Creation, I take up the football theme: in one circle there is a team, in the opposite circle another team, and in the centre of the circle, in the middle, there is the ball. The ball is what is at stake, not human life, and everyone tries to bring their intelligence and ability to the highest degree by playing with chance, with that ball the game is activated that now sees us on the pitch competing together to steer chance towards a new stage of humanity. So-called sports supporting sees masses of people verbally pitted against each other to participate in the game of creation extended to the whole of society. One could say that this is a ritual participation, even a spiritual one where creation is not understood in a transcendent but an immanent sense, the faculty of creation is thus to be applied in the game of life.”

Over the summer months and until December, a series of educational activities are planned in collaboration with Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, involving students from schools, universities, academies and football schools.