Italian football clubs, players and fans have raised millions of euros to support the country’s stretched health system amid the devastating coronavirus outbreak.
Thursday was one of the bleakest days in Italy’s battle against Covid-19 as the death toll rose to 3,405, overtaking China as the highest number of fatalities from the disease in one country. A series of campaigns by clubs, players and owners has helped fight back against a crisis being felt at every level of Italian society.
Roma delivered 8,000 pairs of protective gloves and 2,000 bottles of hand sanitiser to churches around the capital, where they will be redistributed to those most in need, while Internazionale donated 300,000 face masks to the public health department.
First-team players and staff at Inter have donated €500,000 (£455,000), while crowdfunding campaigns set up by Roma, Milan, Juventus and Fiorentina have each raised more than €420,000. A campaign set up by Lazio highlighted the importance of people continuing to go and give blood, reassuring house-bound residents that it is permitted and safe to do so.
Individuals have also been at the forefront of the fundraising charge. Milan’s striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic launched a “Kick the Virus Away” campaign, putting in the first €100,000, and his fund has passed the €250,000 mark.
Others, including the SPAL striker Andrea Petagna, the Napoli captain, Lorenzo Insigne, the Torino forward Simone Zaza and the Juventus winger Federico Bernardeschi, have raised or donated more than €430,000 between them. The former Roma and Italy forward Francesco Totti also weighed in, donating 15 machines for monitoring vital signs to a hospital in Rome.
The largest contributions came from two of the biggest names in the country. The former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, owner of third-tier Monza and former president of Milan, made a €10m donation to the Lombardy region on Tuesday to help build a 400-bed intensive care unit.
The Agnelli family, the owners of Juventus and the Fiat Chrysler Group, matched the sum to support the national health service, while Juve announced the family holding company Exor is in the process of buying 150 artificial respirators for Italian hospitals.
This week the number of coronavirus cases among Serie A players rose to 13 when Juventus’ Blaise Matuidi and Hellas Verona’s Mattia Zaccagni tested positive.
