Winners Cup 2024: 300 young cancer patients from across Europe celebrate the positive strength of sport | OneFootball

MILANO, 3 October 2024 – FC Internazionale Milano is back on the field for the fifth edition of the Winners Cup, a football tournament dedicated to adolescent patients from pediatric oncology departments. The event will take place on Saturday, 5 October, at the Sandro Pertini Sports Centre in Cornaredo. This unique event focuses its efforts on demonstrating how sport is a universal language and action, serving as a small but significant antidote to illness.

The two-day program is filled with activities, beginning tomorrow with the welcome of 17 teams arriving from across Italy and six other European countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Spain. Each of the 16 mixed teams will consist of 12 young players, bringing together over 200 boys and girls aged between 15 and 20, united by their passion for sport and their experiences as patients or former patients at one of the approximately thirty pediatric oncology centres involved from Italy and Europe. After the tournament, the young participants will be taken to San Siro Stadium in Milano to watch the Inter vs. Torino match.

The event was organised by Inter, in collaboration with partner BPER, as well as the Centro Sportivo Italiano (CSI) Milano and the Gruppo di Lavoro Adolescenti of the Associazione Italiana di Ematologia e Oncologia Pediatrica (AIEOP). It received support from the Fondazione Bianca Garavaglia, which has been aiding the Pediatria Oncologica department of the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milano for years, as well as from FIAGOP (Federazione Italiana Associazioni Genitori Oncologie Pediatriche) and SIOPE (European Society for Paediatric Oncology).

Since its first edition in 2017, the Winners Cup has seen the participation of over a thousand young cancer patients, collecting important life stories from these young individuals who challenge themselves every day, finding in sport a vital motivation and a warm environment. Through this initiative, held under the patronage of the Lombardy Region and CONI, Inter has again positioned itself in 2024 as a supporter and spokesperson for the work carried out by paediatric oncology departments, promoting the role of football as a tool for connection and celebration for young people marked by such a difficult life experience.