For 40 days, it went beyond being the home of the Italian National Teams, symbolically embracing the whole country and trying to provide concrete help in the current health emergency. From 6 April to 15 May, the Coverciano Federal Training Centre accommodated 48 COVID-positive patients at the on-site hotel facility, where the Azzurri and Azzurre usually reside when they get together.

Now available to the FIGC once more, preparations for upcoming commitments have begun. In the near future, the Federal Training Centre will be able to resume its usual activities, from referees’ meetings to Coaching School courses, which are currently being held online. The Azzurri and Azzurre will also be able to use the pitches at the ‘home of the Italian National Football Teams’.

The aforementioned initiative was supported by FIGC President Gabriele Gravini and materialised thanks to the collaboration with the Municipality of Florence and the USL Tuscany Centre, who took charge of the site. The site itself was managed by the local health organisation and the Società della Salute. For the entire duration of the patients' stay, the Civil Protection service ensured that the hotel reception remained open 24 hours a day.

Some of those who stayed at the Coverciano hotel had been discharged from hospital but, despite being clinically healed, were still showing as COVID-19 positive and were unable to reside at home (for example, maintaining a social distance from family members couldn’t be guaranteed). Furthermore, there were those from the region who had caught the virus but whose condition never reached a point where they needed hospital treatment. These two groups made up 90% of those who were accommodated at Coverciano, with the remaining 10% arriving from other residential facilities in order to safeguard other people staying in those same facilities.

As highlighted by FIGC President Gabriele Gravina in a letter sent to the mayor of Florence before any patients had been admitted, making the Coverciano complex available for use was a “further example of the strong bond that ties the FIGC to Florence”. Dario Nardella then underlined this sentiment, saying that the Federal Training Centre would be transformed into the ‘Home of Solidarity’.