Pope Francis told football superstars including Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi to use their sport to fight discrimination and promote peace ahead of the Vatican-organised Match for Peace yesterday.
Speaking to players before the match Pope Francis said that young people looked to athletes as role models and urged them to set a good example both on and off the pitch.
“The game tonight will certainly be an opportunity to raise funds to support projects of solidarity, but above all to reflect on the universal values that football and sport in general can promote: loyalty, sharing, openness, dialogue, confidence in the other,” he said.
The match would be a symbolic gesture to demonstrate that people of different religions could co-exist peacefully, he added.
During the meeting Argentine superstar Diego Maradona gave Francis a shirt from his national team with “Franciso” written on the back.
Fifty footballers, including Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Hindus took part in the match at Rome’s Olympic Stadium last night.
All the proceeds will be donated to a schools network set up by the Pontifical Academy for Sciences and supported by Messi and Buffon called Scholas Occurrentes, and to the PUPI Foundation, a children’s charity in Buenos Aires set up by Zanetti and his wife Paula.
The PUPI Foundation team, captained by former Italian Serie A Internazionale captain Javier Zanetti, defeated the Scholas team 6-3, thanks to a hat trick from Argentine striker Mauro Icardi in the second half.
Maradona played the entire 90 minutes and the highlight of the night was his delightful lobbed pass that set up a goal for Roberto Baggio.
Above: The Olympic Statium. Photo: Match for Peace Facebook
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