Club orders three intensive care ventilators after players donate day’s salary to Covid-19 campaign

AS Roma has today announced that it will buy three intensive care ventilators and eight new intensive care beds for a hospital in Rome tackling the Covid-19 crisis, after players and coaching staff donated a day’s salary to the club’s fundraising campaign.

After discussing the critical situation in Italy, which on Thursday overtook China for the most coronavirus fatalities in the world, the club’s first team players and coaching staff unanimously agreed to each donate a day’s salary to AS Roma’s campaign, on top of any individual contributions that many of them have already made.

Their joint donation – which totals more than €200,000 – now means that Roma’s fundraising campaign, unveiled a week ago, currently stands at €460,000 – and is within touching distance of the pre-launch target of €500,000.

With Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital in Rome, one of the most important specialist hospitals in Italy in the nationwide fight against the coronavirus, now absolutely desperate for new equipment, Roma has agreed to immediately use a proportion of the funds to order three intensive care ventilators, five pulmonary ventilators for sub-intensive care and eight new intensive care beds.

The new equipment cannot arrive soon enough, with a record 627 new deaths and over 4,600 new Covid-19 cases announced in Italy in the last 24 hours alone.

“At such a difficult time for humanity, feeling the tangible support of the Roma Cares Foundation fills us with pride and gives us the positivity we need to face up to the hard work we have ahead of us,” said Marta Branca, director general of the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

“Doctors and nurses have been working hard to fight and contain the disease, but it’s important and necessary that we have the support of everyone.”

The AS Roma Covid-19 campaign was announced last Thursday, with an initial donation of €50,000 from club president Jim Pallotta and a further €50,000, later increased to €89,000, from the club’s foundation, Roma Cares.

Additional significant contributions have also arrived from the Roma chief executive Guido Fienga, senior management, club staff and the GoFundMe Team, as well as over €100,000 already donated by fans, followers and former players.

“The players and the coaching staff wanted to do something very meaningful for the city and the people suffering in this country,” said club CEO Fienga.

“At moments like this, it’s important that we all take on our responsibilities and do what we can to help. Whether it’s the president, our players and staff, our fantastic former players and all our fans, from Rome and elsewhere, everyone who has contributed has helped pay for these new intensive care ventilators, which will help save real lives.

“We’re not giving up though and now we want to raise even more money, surpass our €500,000 target and buy more essential hospital equipment.”

On Tuesday, AS Roma delivered 13,000 FFP2 masks to hospitals in the city, along with 120 500ml bottles of hand sanitizer.

Following on from that, on Thursday the club and Roma Cares delivered a total of 8,000 pairs of protective gloves and 2,000 bottles of sanitising hand gel to churches in key parts of the Italian capital – to be redistributed among the vulnerable in their communities.


Click here to donate to the AS Roma fundraiser to fight Covid-19