Sport Shortlist

Every year, thousands of children leave West Africa with dreams of becoming professional footballers in Europe, but few of them make it. Many of them are approached by fake football agents who promise trials at international football clubs, but when they get to Europe they are often exploited in labour camps between Spain and Portugal, and sometimes abandoned on the street without their documents.

In Carmiano in southern Italy, a town of 15,000 inhabitants, there is a young football team – the ‘Rinascita Refugees’ – which is made up of asylum seekers. The team belongs to a project aimed at protecting unaccompanied foreign minors, and for a number of years it has been at the top of the championship tables in the Puglia region. Guineans, Senegalese, Gambians, Nigerians and Malians are among the nationalities of young footballers whose kit bears the motto: ‘Let’s kick racism’.

I was born in Pompeii on October 31, 1984 and I am a freelance photojournalist, based in Naples, Italy. After graduating in photography, I started my career as a photojournalist in Rome. Subsequently I concentrated my work and my personal projects on the issues concerning humanitarian causes in the poorest areas of the earth, wars, social revolutions and migrations, working on assignment and publishing on the main Italian and international magazines and newspaper.