We don't need the “sport ius soli”: we need the ius soli

We don't need the “sport ius soli”

The president of Coni Malagò uses the gold of Jacobs and Tamberi to ask for a half-way reform: only for the promising young sportsmen. But they are part of the 800 thousand young people born and raised in Italy, or arrived as children, and without citizenship

(photo: CAMERON SPENCER / POOL / AFP via Getty Images) The point is political, indeed, dear Giovanni Malagò. On August 1st 2021, after the epic day for Italian sport with the Olympic gold medals in Tokyo by Marcell Jacobs in the 100 meters flat and Gianmarco Tamberi in the high jump, the president of Coni took the opportunity of maximum visibility to relaunch the reform of sporting ius soli. He did it, it is to be hoped, precisely to exploit media attention and not to use the image of Jacobs, who is of an Italian mother and has lived in Italy since she was one year old and half. “The sport ius soli? Not recognizing it is crazy, ”Malagò said. Adding that "there has been a formidable controversy around the theme of ius soli for years. We don't want to be in politics, we only want to deal with sports. But not recognizing the sporting ius is aberrant. Today more than ever this discourse must be absolutely concretized ”.

Put like this, it almost seems that for those who are not a young athlete of some competitive interest, and therefore are not registered with Italian sports clubs, the lack of a law on ius soli, perhaps tempered by a series of requirements as the completion of school cycles, is not aberrant. Instead, it is just as and perhaps more so than the condition of young sportsmen without Italian citizenship: both categories are made up of Italians who actually live and go to school in Italy but cannot fully enjoy citizenship rights. Not to mention that, logically, one is indeed a subset of the other. In addition, and this is undoubtedly an aggravating factor for a promising youngster, the latter cannot, however, compete in the national teams and therefore have to wait a long time to develop a successful career. At 18, like everyone else, they must in fact "face a via crucis that often makes those who tire of waiting escape" added Malagò.

The thing is that the via crucis concerns everyone, not just sportspeople : speaking of sporting ius soli is in fact equivalent to speaking of ius soli. Point. And it is a further pity that the president of Coni did not have the courage to pose the question precisely in these terms and with the spotlight: the sportsmen he talks about are among those around 800 thousand young people who are inexplicably denied Italian citizenship. Having said that citizenship should arrive, for everyone, before the age of 18 (obviously keeping in mind the rule against the trafficking of young players), it seems at least singular to ask for a preferential path only to a young athletic phenomenon and not to broaden the consideration to that army of Italians in fact and not yet de jure due to the usual Salvini on duty. If they are promises it's okay, if they are people without particular competitive interests, no?

There cannot be a privilege in favor of sportsmen only because, whatever Malagò thinks about it, it is indeed a political question, as politics is on the other hand, it was the frantic reform of the Coni: it is in fact, as well as a logical consequence, also and above all a choice of civilization that unfortunately appears to have been archived in Italy for some time. In fact, it has not been mentioned since 2017, when the text filed in 2015 was sunk in the Chamber: "Let's try again in the next legislature," said the then Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin at Angelino Alfano. We have seen how the "next legislature" in which Lorenzin trusted so much is going: first the turbopopulist government of Giuseppe Conte, to follow the Giallorossi era, where the red was rather weak, finally the technical government of Mario Draghi, supported by a harlequin majority to be kept upright without slipping. Even the Zan bill risks the same end as the now forgotten temperate ius soli: the sacrifice to the quiet life of the government of the "best".


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