Roma players donate salary to hospital in COVID-19 fight

 Italy football club AS Roma has 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.

With Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital in Rome, one of the most important specialist hospitals in Italy in the nationwide fight against the coronavirus, 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.

In a statement, the club said that their first team players and coaching staff have unanimously agreed to each donate a day's salary to AS Roma's campaign.

Their joint donation -- which totals more than 2,00,000 euros -- now means that Roma's fundraising campaign, unveiled a week ago, currently stands at 4,60,000 euros -- and is within touching distance of the pre-launch target of 5,00,000 euros.

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

A record 627 new deaths and over 4,600 new COVID-19 cases were found in Italy on Friday.

No sporting activity has been taking place in Italy since March 9 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak which has so far claimed over 10,000 lives across the world. IANS