Post by Macmoish on May 3, 2011 20:06:12 GMT
One of the Briatore et al signings for QPR!
Tommasi takes over from Campana as leader of Italy's players union
www.sportsfeatures.com/soccernews/story/48560/tommasi-takes-over-from-campana-as-leader-of-italys-players-union
Damiano Tommasi: playing for Italy at the 2002 World Cup / Fotosports.com
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON/ROME, May 03: Damiano Tommasi, former Italy midfielder, has taken over the reins of the Italian players' union from long-serving Sergio Campana with promise to make the insecurity of lower division players a priority.
The 43-year-old won an election in the executive council by 14-8 against Leo Grosso who will step down as a vice-president of the ANC to concentrate on work with the international players' organisation, FIFpro. Campana, who had been out front for a remarkable 43 years, has been awarded the role of honorary president.
Tommasi said he intended to be a "mediating leader" both in terms of often-tectchy relations between the AIC and the Italian federation and league and within the increasing fractured union. He set one of priorities as finding a system which protected the contracts of players in the lower divisions in the case of club bankruptcies.
Born on May 17, 1974, Tommasi spent a decade with Roma - winning Serie A in 2001 - before moving abroad with Levante (Spain, Queens Park Rangers (England) and Tianjin Teda (China). He returned to Italy and still plays in the amateur leagues for Sant'Anna d'Alfaedo.
At international level he scored two goals in 25 games for Italy between 1998 and 2003 and played in all four matches of the luckless 2002 World Cup campaign in Japan and South Korea.
One of the most notable incidents in Tommasi's career occured in a pre-season friendly between Roma and Stoke in 2004 when a knee was wrecked in a collision with Gerry Taggart.
A year later, defying medical opinion which suggested he might never play again, Tommasi signed a one-year contract extension with Roma. At his own suggestion he agreed to accept youth player wages of €1,500-a-month and was vindicated when, in the October, he made his Serie A return.
The man he succeeds, Campana, had played for Lanerossi Vicenza and Bologna in the 1950s and 1960s while qualifying as a lawyer, and had led the AIC since its creation in 1968. However he has come under increasing criticism in recent seasons that he was not close enough to modern footballers, their priorities, lifestyles and values.
Tommasi takes over from Campana as leader of Italy's players union
www.sportsfeatures.com/soccernews/story/48560/tommasi-takes-over-from-campana-as-leader-of-italys-players-union
Damiano Tommasi: playing for Italy at the 2002 World Cup / Fotosports.com
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON/ROME, May 03: Damiano Tommasi, former Italy midfielder, has taken over the reins of the Italian players' union from long-serving Sergio Campana with promise to make the insecurity of lower division players a priority.
The 43-year-old won an election in the executive council by 14-8 against Leo Grosso who will step down as a vice-president of the ANC to concentrate on work with the international players' organisation, FIFpro. Campana, who had been out front for a remarkable 43 years, has been awarded the role of honorary president.
Tommasi said he intended to be a "mediating leader" both in terms of often-tectchy relations between the AIC and the Italian federation and league and within the increasing fractured union. He set one of priorities as finding a system which protected the contracts of players in the lower divisions in the case of club bankruptcies.
Born on May 17, 1974, Tommasi spent a decade with Roma - winning Serie A in 2001 - before moving abroad with Levante (Spain, Queens Park Rangers (England) and Tianjin Teda (China). He returned to Italy and still plays in the amateur leagues for Sant'Anna d'Alfaedo.
At international level he scored two goals in 25 games for Italy between 1998 and 2003 and played in all four matches of the luckless 2002 World Cup campaign in Japan and South Korea.
One of the most notable incidents in Tommasi's career occured in a pre-season friendly between Roma and Stoke in 2004 when a knee was wrecked in a collision with Gerry Taggart.
A year later, defying medical opinion which suggested he might never play again, Tommasi signed a one-year contract extension with Roma. At his own suggestion he agreed to accept youth player wages of €1,500-a-month and was vindicated when, in the October, he made his Serie A return.
The man he succeeds, Campana, had played for Lanerossi Vicenza and Bologna in the 1950s and 1960s while qualifying as a lawyer, and had led the AIC since its creation in 1968. However he has come under increasing criticism in recent seasons that he was not close enough to modern footballers, their priorities, lifestyles and values.