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Located on the historic industrial site of Neischmelz in Dudelange – long associated with Luxembourg’s “dirty south” – the first 352 Football Festival in 2023 transformed a former steel landscape into a living meeting point between football, arts and culture. Conceived as a platform the festival offered a space where players, supporters, researchers, artists and curious visitors could meet in person and exchange ideas around the game.

Over one summer weekend, around 850 visitors from Luxembourg and abroad discovered a programme that combined critical debate, artistic practice and play. Three round‑tables brought together local and international speakers to discuss the aesthetics and history of football jerseys, analogue sports photography, and socio‑cultural questions such as women’s football, racism, homophobia and integration through sport. A mixed‑gender 5‑a‑side tournament, partly supported by local partners, turned the pitch itself into a space of encounter between participants from very different social backgrounds.

Workshops invited young people and adults to explore football creatively: collage, a “kit creator” for designing shirts, analogue photography with Fotoclub Diddeleng in the Vewa building, and a tifo workshop where visitors painted the first 352 Football Festival flag and learned how stadium banners are made. A vintage jersey market with sellers from Belgium, Luxembourg and England, together with music and food trucks, gave the festival its convivial atmosphere.