Sport has become one of the strategic levers with which the Farnesina projects the Sistema Italia abroad. No longer a mere terrain of symbolic representation, "sports diplomacy" is today a structured instrument of the growth policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI): it serves to support the internationalisation of businesses, to showcase national excellence and to nurture, through Olympic values, a channel of dialogue between peoples. The centre of gravity of the action, however, does not stay in Rome: it runs through the diplomatic-consular network and the CONI delegates abroad, with Switzerland among the territories where this connection is most concrete.
The turning point is recent and dated. On 15 January 2024 the Farnesina established the Sports Diplomacy Office, set up as Ufficio XII of the Directorate-General for Growth and Export Promotion (DGCE). With this move, the MAECI placed sport within the broad range of strategic promotion instruments serving the "diplomacy of growth", with the aim of fostering the international projection of Italian sporting excellence and the related production chains, in synergy with CONI, the Italian Paralympic Committee (CIP), Sport e Salute, the Federations, the ICE Agency and the trade associations.
The decisive step came on 9 September 2025, on the occasion of the second "Day of Italian Sport in the World" at Villa Madama, dedicated to the theme "Mountain and Sea". In the presence of Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Minister for Sport and Youth Andrea Abodi, CONI President Luciano Buonfiglio and CIP President Marco Giunio De Sanctis, a new Memorandum of Understanding was signed between MAECI, the Ministry for Sport, CONI and CIP. The document brings the diplomatic-consular network and that of the CONI delegates into a single system, provides for the involvement of Olympic and Paralympic champions as ambassadors and lays the foundations for a Diplomatic Sports Committee. In the same setting, Minister Tajani appointed eleven new "Ambassadors of sports diplomacy", champions from various disciplines divided by territory, called to bear witness to Italian excellence alongside the more than 300 events already organised around the world by the network of Embassies and consulates.
The economic weight of the sector explains the political investment. On the occasion of the National Sports Day in June 2026, the Farnesina recalled that the sector generates around 32 billion euros of added value, almost 1.5% of GDP, with exports of sporting goods exceeding 4.7 billion euros, a figure that places Italy among the top five exporters in the world and second in Europe. The priority is also confirmed in the budget guidelines: over the 2026-2028 three-year period, the MAECI intends to strengthen its sports diplomacy in support of the internationalisation of sport-related production chains.
The operational point of contact between the Roman strategy and the territories is the figure of the CONI Foreign Delegate. With resolution no. 313 of 29 October 2025, the National Giunta led by president Luciano Buonfiglio, elected on 26 June 2025, renewed its network of delegates for the 2025-2028 Olympic quadrennium, confirming the mandates in the seven countries with the strongest and most stable Italian presence: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Switzerland and Venezuela.
These are voluntary, unpaid appointments, reserved, as provided by the Regulation of Italian Communities Abroad (CIE), for Italian citizens residing abroad who possess the technical and professional requirements needed to spread sporting culture and organise youth promotion activities. It is precisely through this network that the MAECI-CONI Protocol finds its legs on the ground: the link between the delegates and the diplomatic missions abroad is designed to integrate their respective activities organically.
An emblematic vehicle of this integration is the Trofeo CONI. Since 2023, the sports delegations of Italian communities abroad not only compete in the disciplines of the official programme but also rediscover, as "travellers of the roots", the places of origin of their families: a graft between sport and culture that connects directly to the "Roots Tourism" project promoted by the MAECI's Directorate-General for Italians Abroad, governed by an institutional collaboration agreement between CONI and the Farnesina.
Switzerland is one of the territories where this model can be observed most clearly, given the historical size of the Italian community. For the 2025-2028 quadrennium, the mandate of CONI Foreign Delegate for Switzerland was confirmed for Dr Cirano Tondi, in an appointment communicated directly by president Buonfiglio, who underlined how through this figure CONI can nurture young Italian talents abroad and strengthen the promotion of the Sistema Paese that is the subject of the Protocol with the MAECI, the Ministry of Sport and the CIP.
The mandate is clearly anchored to the territory: promoting sporting culture and practice among young Italian and Italian-Swiss generations, supporting emerging talents and fostering collaboration with the Italian institutions in Switzerland, from the consulates to the Committees of Italians Abroad (Com.It.Es.), from the managing bodies to the Italian schools, and with local sports organisations. The operational reference is the address delegato.svizzera@coni.it.
It is in this weave that the role of the consulates becomes substantial. The consular missions are the first outpost of the Sistema Italia on the ground: they make available their network of relations with the communities and local institutions, host and support promotional events, and act as the connecting link between the CONI delegate, the community's sports associations and the Italian institutional actors on site. The delegate, for his part, brings technical expertise and reach into the world of amateur and youth sport. Collaboration with the consulates thus makes it possible to turn the strategic lines defined in Rome into concrete appointments for the Italians of Switzerland.
Sports diplomacy now presents itself as a structural, no longer episodic, component of Italy's international action. Its effectiveness will depend on the ability to make the chain that connects Rome to the communities work: from the Permanent Table and the Diplomatic Sports Committee, to the appointments of the CONI delegates, down to the daily work of the consulates. In Switzerland, where the Italian community is among the largest in Europe, the synergy between the CONI delegate, the consulates, the Com.It.Es. and the schools is a concrete testing ground for measuring how much sport can really strengthen the bond between Italy and its citizens abroad, and with it, the image of the Sistema Italia in the world.
