The small-town team defying a far-right ban on cricket in Italy
In Monfalcone, a rightwing mayor has banned one of the world’s most popular sports for being ‘un-Italian’
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On a freezing Sunday morning in January, the Monfalcone Tigers cricket team is doing its best to warm up for a training session in Isonzo Park, Turriaco. The small town on Italy’s east coast is exposed to a whipping wind from the Adriatic Sea, bringing a bitter chill that many of the players, originally from Bangladesh, are still unused to.
This is the first time the team has been able to practise in weeks and captain Sani Bhuiyan, 34, is happy to see his teammates, despite the bleak weather. “Cricket is actually a summer sport, but we are making the effort to play it even in winter, to not lose hope,” he said.
The cricketers have defied more than the elements by coming out to train. They represent Monfalcone, a town 8km away where cricket has been banned since April 2023. The ban was introduced by Mayor Anna Maria Cisint, a far-right politician backed by Matteo Salvini’s League party and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, who was elected in 2022 on a promise to fight Muslim immigration with 72% of the vote. Now anyone caught playing the sport can be fined €100 (£84). “They say it’s because cricket doesn’t belong to Italian culture, but the truth is that they believe foreigners don’t,” said batsman Masum Ahmed.
Cisint has also removed the park benches where Bangladeshi families commonly sat. She has forbidden modest swimwear worn by Muslim women, closed two Islamic cultural centres, added a 45% ceiling of foreign students per class and seized all electric scooters used by local Bangladeshi workers at Fincantieri shipyard, the largest manufacturer of cruise ships in Europe and the town’s main source of income. Last November, she attempted to ban Muslim prayers.
Of the 30,000 people who live in Monfalcone, nearly 10,000 are immigrants, mainly South Asian Muslims, most of whom came to work at the Fincantieri shipyard as Bhuiyan’s father did in 1999. Bhuiyan, his mother and brothers joined him in 2006. Ahmed, who also works at Fincantieri, arrived in 2003 and obtained Italian citizenship in 2016.
“I bought a house here, I feel Monfalconese, but many of my Bangladeshi friends in recent years have moved to England, hoping not to feel as exposed and discriminated against as they do in Monfalcone,” he said.
At first glance, the town’s immigrant and Italian-born communities appear well integrated. The streets are a mix of Italian restaurants and halal shops; Italians bundled in woollen sweaters and scarves walk side by side with Bangladeshis in sherwanis and hijabs. But with municipal elections due to be called in March, Bhuiyan says the atmosphere is increasingly tense. Many Muslims here say the mayor has changed their lives for the worse. Bhuiyan has decided he’ll run for city councillor alongside the leftwing Democratic Party’s candidate Diego Moretti, hoping to bring a change. “I no longer want to feel like an outsider. This is also our home,” he said.
Cisint did not respond to Hyphen’s request for an interview. She has, however, previously claimed that her mission is to “protect” her town from Islamic fundamentalism and defend Christian values. More recently she clarified that the cricket ban is due to a lack of money to build a cricket pitch. She claims the sport is too dangerous to play in parks and other public areas.
“We have tried our best to play in places where we don’t bother anyone,” Ahmed said. “In Monfalcone there’s a field that has been there for 40 years, where Italians play football without problems, but we weren’t allowed to play there. We even offered to collect money and build ourselves a pitch that the whole town could have access to, but that also wasn’t allowed.”
Bhuiyan is convinced Cisint is not acting in the interests of public safety. “Cricket has come to symbolise a cultural threat,” he said.
In an act of defiance last June, the team made their informal practice group into an official club, registering the Monfalcone Tigers with the Italian National Olympic Committee. They are forced to travel to Turriaco to train. “Between the fact that we get off from work when it’s already dark and the fact that we have to go to another town, we have lost motivation a bit,” Buihyan admitted.
Many in the Bangladeshi community are struggling to remain hopeful. For Rosa Zahan, who moved to Monfalcone from Bangladesh three years ago, integration is a struggle. “I decided to come to Italy for my daughter, for a better future for her. But just like me, she can’t make friends with Italians,” she said with evident frustration, explaining that she is mocked because her Italian is not fluent and she wears a veil — both obstacles to finding work.
There are, however, those in Monfalcone who are working to encourage multiculturalism. Anna Troilo is a retired doctor who volunteers teaching Italian to immigrants at the Monfalcone Interethnic Association, which she co-founded in 2018 with several other local women. Troilo is convinced that the communities should and can find a way to live happily together.
“I understand that the arrival of a large number of foreigners always has an impact on a town, especially one so small,” she said. “The Bangladeshis are an evident and easily recognisable presence. But if we have to live together, they have to acquire our habits as we are lucky enough to share theirs. If it wasn’t for the contribution of the foreign community, Monfalcone would become a ghost town. They’re the backbone of our economy.”
Enrico Bullian, former leftwing mayor and now a regional councillor of the Friuli regional assembly, is a longstanding friend of Bhuiyan. He’s even joined a few cricket practices to show his support. Bullian is worried that under Cisint, tensions in the town have escalated dangerously. Cisint has received death threats and is now under police escort.
“What’s happening in Monfalcone is a reflection of a countrywide shift towards the right and its crackdown on migration,” Bullian said. “It’s easier to point at foreigners as scapegoats, especially in smaller towns. But that’s not the way to solve our problems.”
Cisint’s centre-left opponent, Diego Moretti, is campaigning on better labour rights at Fincantieri, as well as improving inclusion of the Bangladeshi community in the town’s decision-making. He has been accused by Cisint’s team of “looking to appeal to Islamic voters” but is backed by both Buihyan and Bullian, who remain hopeful that the town will choose a message of unity rather than division when it comes to voting for a new mayor.
In the weeks leading up to the elections, the Monfalcone Tigers feel it’s more important than ever to play together. The team is a support network, a way of standing together and showing they’re not afraid.
“For us, this is not just a game, it’s a tradition that allows us to keep a piece of home away from home. An innocent way to keep a tiny connection to our roots and share it with those who welcomed us,” Buhiyan said, promising that if Moretti is elected, cricket will be reinstated in the town’s spring sports festival.
“I’m positive we stand a chance this time. Monfalcone has suffered too much because of these discriminations. The town needs unity.”
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