WebProNews

Tag: Roma

  • Mia Hamm Appointed To Board Of Directors Of Italian Football Club Roma

    Footballer Mia Hamm was recently appointed to the board of directors of the Italian club Roma, along with former National Hockey League player Cam Neely and former Disney board member Stanley Gold. Hamm was nominated by Roma shareholders on Monday, October 27, increasing American presence on the team’s board. Roma is also owned by Boston-born James Palotta, who took over the team two years ago.

    Hamm, Neely and Gold will be replacing outgoing members Thomas DiBenedetto, Claudio Fenucci and Joe Tacopina. Hamm will be placed in charge of the Roma academies.

    Hamm is a celebrated soccer player who led the US women’s soccer team to two World Cup titles, including the first women’s title in 1991. She was also named women’s FIFA World Player of the Year in 2001 and 2002, in the first years the awards were given.

    — World Soccer Talk (@worldsoccertalk) October 28, 2014

    Considered one of the most decorated female soccer players of all time, Hamm was recently the first woman to be inaugurated into the World Football Hall of Fame in Pachuca, Mexico. Throughout a career spanning 17 years, the 42-year-old athlete earned 275 caps and 158 goals for the US women’s national team.

    Hamm’s co-director on the board for Roma, Neely, is also an accomplished athlete, beginning his career in 1983 when he was 9th pick in the overall draft for the NHL. His career spanned 13 years, during which he played for the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins. Neely was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005 and went on to serve as Vice President of the Boston Bruins before becoming President of the team in 2010. Under his leadership, the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011.

    Board members on Roma serve three-year terms, as will Hamm, Neely and Gold. Upon leaving the board of Roma recently, Tacopina moved on to become President of second-division club Bologna, where Fenucci will be joining him.

  • Mystery Girl’s Parents have been Identified

    It looks as though the mystery of the 4-year-old girl in Greece has been solved. A DNA test proved that a Bulgarian Roma couple, Antanas and Sasha Ruseva, is little Maria’s parents.

    “Analysis proved that Sasha Ruseva is the biological mother of the girl named Maria,” Bulgarian Interior Ministry Chief Commissioner, Svetlozar Lazarov said. “It also showed Atanas Rusev as the biological father.”

    Sasha admitted that she had given birth to a baby girl four years ago in Greece while she was working as an olive picker. She gave the baby away because she did not feel she could care for her because they were so poor.

    “I didn’t take any money,” Sasha said. “I just didn’t have enough money to feed her. I intended to go back and take my child home, but meanwhile I gave birth to two more kids, so I was not able to go.”

    Maria has been placed in the custody of the organization, Smile of the Child, since last week when a Roma camp was raided and she was discovered peeking out from under a blanket. She had poor hygiene and was living in filth. The couple who were claiming to be her parents were arrested.

    “Now that they’re in prison there’s not much they can do,” their lawyer, Costas Katsavos, said. “But provided what we said is borne out, that it was not an abduction, then logically they will be released from prison and they will be able to enter a proper adoption process … They truly and ardently want her back.”

    Maria’s biological family regrets ever giving their child away and her mother says she “was a fool to leave the kid there”.

    “I like her very much, she looks very much like me and I want her back home. We will take care of her and I can help my mother,” Minka Ruseva, Maria’s 14-year-old sister, said.

    As of now, Maria is remaining in one of the Smile of the Child homes until the matter can be resolved.

    “We are dealing with the humanitarian side of this issue, looking after a young girl,” director of the charity, Costas Yannopoulos, said.

    Image via Twitter