Luigi and the Strength of Soccer

The sports center is in the very center of Milan, just a short walk from La Scala and the Duomo. Around 4,000 square meters with a 5-a-side soccer field, volleyball, basketball and a track, in addition to a play area for children. Luigi De Micco, a graduate of the Business Administration program at Bocconi and founder of GoKick e Playmore, will reintroduce an important resource for Milan and its people: "I submitted a project and city council member Chiara Bisconti approved it. Playmore has had a wonderful structure to manage since September. In the mornings, the area is used by schools free of charge, in the afternoons/evenings the fields are available at city prices." But the project is much more than this. "It's the home for all sporting initiatives related to the social issues that we promote through the Playmore association," says De Micco, a 36-year-old Cagliari native who has also lived in the US, Portugal and Australia.

It all started in 2004, when he was motivated by a passion for playing soccer, and the difficulties in organizing games, due to study, work and family commitments. So Luigi decided to create GoKick.org, the first website that could be used to organize matches. "On the website, which is free of charge, you can add your profile, create a calendar, decide where to play and when and the people subscribe until the fixed number of players has been reached," explains De Micco. In the beginning, matches were organized one at a time, but now GoKick has international reach, with around 6,000 users and games organized in various parts of the world. Since it had become practically a job, Luigi requested to work part-time at the advertising agency where he worked, investing his own money to implement the website. After that it wasn't long before he founded the Playmore association with his long-time partner Pietro Palvarini. "I was interested in the social aspect of soccer, its ability to bring together people with different social backgrounds, nationalities and cultures," explains Luigi, "and so I decided that I should do more."
Playmore is an association, so it needs partners, a statute, a president (De Micco himself) and a board of directors, which includes another Bocconi alum, Marco Ferrari. Its mission: promote events with soccer games as their focus, with a commitment to social issues. Integrated tournaments were created, with mixed teams of non-disabled and disabled players, collaborations with Caritas and the creation of the World Refugee Day, with the idea of mixed soccer. "In 2011," Luigi says proudly, "we were even invited to the Social Forum in Dakar to talk about our experience."

At first, games and tournaments were held in public parks and were preceded by gatherings during which the values at the base of the initiative, such as respect, integration and integrity, are explained. Then larger facilities were used, including the Arena di Milano. Each event, advertised on GoKick, "is organized and promoted professionally, with, I would say, Bocconian precision," says Liugi, "to debunk one image of the world of social issues."

With the management of the sports center, Luigi and his partners are taking yet another step ahead. "But because the project is sustainable, around 100,000 euros per year are needed, and to find that I thought of three sources: 30% from field bookings, 20% from donations and 50% from sponsorships. It's an ambitious objective, but we'll hit our target."