The Vatican — not known for excelling in sport — plans to field a football team in Italy’s first division and has ambitions for European competition.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the football-mad Secretary of State, said that the Vatican had “a huge pool of soccer talent” on which to draw and saw no reason why it could not one day field a team to rival the top sides in Serie A.

“I do not preclude the possibility that the Vatican could in the future put together a football team of great value that could play on the same level as Roma, Inter Milan, Genoa or Sampdoria,” he said. “Just think of all the Brazilian or African students who attend seminaries or pontifical universities. We could put together a magnificent team.”

Cardinal Bertone, 72, a Juventus fan who used to be a match commentator on television, said that many seminarians and students played at a semi-professional level. He said he had drawn up plans for a training scheme to nurture future stars and had appointed Renzo Ulivieri, a former manager of Sampdoria and Parma, as Vatican City trainer. Sixteen teams drawn from the clergy and seminarians are to compete for a newly established Clericus Cup in February, using Italian municipal football grounds.

Cardinal Bertone said that many world-class footballers had played for Catholic schools and that the game could teach the young sporting values.

The Cardinal is a Salesian, an order whose Catholic schools and institutes highly value sport, and fellow Salesians recall him organising “fero- ciously fought” matches for the young as a priest.

He made his remarks while receiving the honorary citizenship of Alassio, a resort on the Riviera coast near Genoa.

Vatican officials recalled that the late Pope John Paul II had been a football fan and played in goal as a young man. Pope Benedict XVI prefers classical music and has shown little interest in sport, but the scheme has his blessing, sources said.

Officials said that the Vatican might even apply for Fifa or Uefa membership — raising the prospect of a Vatican v Italy game — although “there might be a problem fielding a Vatican team on a Sunday”. At present a Vatican team made up of Swiss Guards and Vatican staff plays at an amateur level in Rome, wearing a strip in the papal colours of white and gold.

The Turin newspaper La Stampa, whose proprietors also own Juventus, suggested that the Vatican’s ambitions would be thwarted, saying that the papal coffers were not full enough “to pay today’s astronomical prices for star players”.

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