Rome- Two 12 year-old boys from the youth academy at Pescara Delfino will represent Italy in St Petersburg at the fifth edition of the Football for Friendship international children’s social project, from June 26 to July 3.

 Football for Friendship is an initiative launched by Gazprom and FIFA designed to develop youth football and foster respect towards different cultures and ethnicities across the world.

 Since launching in 2013, over 400,000 thousand children have taken part in the initiative with over 3000 from 64 countries involved in promoting the event. This year’s edition sees the first involvement of children from America and Mexico.

 The format of the tournament has also been changed so that the participants will be split into eight different international teams, with each team comprising of eight different nationalities.

 The Italian representative on the pitch, Niccolò Postiglione, will team up with players from Egypt, Slovakia, Denmark, Austria, Algeria, Iran and Russia.

 Off the field of play, the event will be covered by young Italian journalist Alessio Canepari and all young journalists will receive equal rights as their adult counterparts.

 The pair will be accompanied to Russia by instructor Luca D’Ulisse and the youth coach at Delfino Pescara, Antonio Di Battista.

 The project’s core value are friendship, equality, health, peace, dedication, victory, tradition and honour.

 Philippe Le Floc’h, FIFA’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Gazprom’s initiative will give a voice to children from around the world and we wholeheartedly endorse the goals and key values of the F4F project. We are delighted to support the initiatives of the F4F Organising Committee until the 2018 FIFA World Cup.”​

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