First World War Christmas truce memorial unveiled

A memorial to the First World War Christmas truce has been unveiled in Belgium, nearly a full century after the day the guns fell silent over the trenches.

Michel Platini, the President of European football authority UEFA, unveiled a sculpture on Thursday to the football matches British and German soldiers played as fighting ceased on Christmas Day in 1914. Dignitaries from several countries attended the ceremony inaugurating a simple stone memorial of a stylised football player set in a field at Saint-Yvon, near the village of Ploegsteert.

The Christmas truce is one of most famous incidents of the war: a moment of mercy amid the carnage, and a symbol of peace amid the horrors of fighting. Soldiers from both sides emerged cautiously from their trenches to meet in No-Man’s Land between them, exchanging Christmas gifts, burying the dead, and even playing football.

"I pay tribute to the soldiers who, one hundred years ago, showed their humanity by playing football together, opening an important chapter in European unity and providing a lasting example to young people," Platini said. That powerful occasion of peaceful togetherness, Platini added, epitomised the "universal language that is football."