GIVEN my love of football, the city of Napoli and people that give a damn about refugees and other vulnerable people, I was always going to like Napoli United. When I discovered they were managed by the son of Diego Maradona, the man who gave Scottish football one of its best nights, Argentina 2-England 1 in Mexico ’86, the sale was complete. 

I’m writing a book with my colleague Vince Raison called The Roaring Red Front; it’s about the world’s top leftist and anti-fascist clubs and is hopefully out later this year. Before going way down to Cosenza in Calabria, a raucous little trip you can read about in the book, I stopped off in Napoli to meet one of the founders of Napoli United. 

The club was founded as Afro-Napoli United in 2009 by local Neapolitans and two Senegalese immigrants. Its goal is to achieve and promote social inclusion through sport, focusing in particular on the involvement of migrants, asylum-seekers and young people at risk of exclusion residing in the Metropolitan area of Napoli. The team is now known as Napoli United and plays in the fifth tier of Italian football, the Eccelenza.