«I am disappointed and disheartened. I feel as if the thirty years spent in training, listening and educating others have gone up in smoke.” The words of Don Aniello Manganiello I am deeply discouraged. The parish priest of Santa Maria della Provvidenza, 69 years old, is responsible for the football school of the Don Guanella Oratory, former guarantor of the Paolo Borsellino national award and founder of “Latest against the mafias and for legality”. Don Aniello’s disappointment is precisely related to the events that occurred the other evening, in Naples, on the occasion of the provincial football championship which saw a youth match between the under 14 men’s team, belonging to the Don Guanella club, and the Napoli Women under 17, a youth team from the women’s Serie A.
The insults by some members of the under 14 team towards the athletes began already during the match and then continued at the endwhen harsh words were spoken. Subsequently, the response from the women’s football club arrived on social media with an open letter bearing a very powerful educational slogan: “From a serious episode to a common commitment: let’s build respectThe letter from Napoli Women, published in an Instagram carousel on the team’s official page, received more than 7 thousand likes and almost 300 comments of solidarity from not only fans but also those who have always been involved in social commitment and non-sports users.
Don Aniello, president of the men’s team, apologized publicly, distancing himself as a person, as a priest and also on behalf of the Don Guanella club. «One of the first choices I made after apologizing was the indefinite suspension from the championship of the two boys with training obligations, not only that, I also planned for them a training session in which they had already participated, but which evidently did not bear fruit. I’m angry because I think about the work of these years and therefore I deduce that it wasn’t enough”, says the anti-Camorra priest who has dedicated his entire life to saving young people from the streets to show them a new direction. «Reflections are already underway to understand what we can do immediately for a possible reconciliation between the two teams, for this reason I have contacted the Campania Football Committee in the person of Carmine Zingarelli to launch various initiatives. We were thinking of an upcoming friendly football match that could bring us together and clarify things with apologies and understanding. Understanding which does not mean justification. A wonderful idea came from Umberto Chiariello, a sports journalist, who proposed a friendly but mixed match. Who knows, by playing shoulder to shoulder many conflicts can be resolved, but above all we can learn how equal we are in pursuing a common goal.”
The campaign of mud that has been poured on the figure of the priest is serious and unjust. Parental, scholastic and then social responsibility cannot be delegated to a single person. «Last night I called all the parents to talk about what happened and understand what we should do. I told them not to have hesitations, as I often tell other parents I meet, in checking their children’s phones, seeing what they write, who they write to, what they eat even online, because everything can become harmful if you don’t know how to manage it. I don’t feel like criminalizing boys and girls. We must not abandon these kids, recovery has always been one of our characteristics and must continue to be so. It is an incentive for us to accompany them and understand them”, concludes Don Aniello.
“No girl should ever feel humiliated simply for being a woman” – says the post -, and again, in conclusion: “For this reason today we publicly denounce what happened. Not to fuel anger, but to assume a responsibility that concerns everyone.”
