Lega Serie A: "Football is one of Italy's main sources of soft power" (Luigi De Siervo)

"Within the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a department responsible for sports diplomacy has been set up, because sport, and football in particular, is one of Italy's main sources of soft power," said Luigi De Siervo, CEO of Lega Serie A, at the 2026 edition of the BIT (Borsa Internazionale del Turismo, Italy's leading tourism fair), in Rho, near Milan (ITA), on 11/02/2026.

At the roundtable entitled ”Gioco di Squadra. Come il calcio trasforma il brand delle città” ("Team game: how football transforms the brand image of cities"), the CEO of the Lega Serie A presented the ”Campioni del Made in Italy” ("Champions of Made in Italy") project, carried out by the League, explaining how football is not just a sport, but a driver of economic development and tourist attraction for the cities that host Serie A Enilive clubs.

"The aim was to get the various stars of the Serie A clubs involved, by getting them to speak in their native language so that they could describe the specific features of the territory of the team they play for, not only from a tourism point of view in the strict…