there should be more of this (tommasi)

ditpoker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Tommasi wrote:

Damiano Tommasi (born May 17, 1974 in Negrar) is an Italian football player who currently plays for Levante UD of La Liga. Also a noted philanthropist, Tommasi arranges for footballers' disciplinary fines to go to good causes.

Tommasi started his career playing for Hellas Verona in Serie B from 1993 to 1996. He made his Serie A debut on September 7, 1996 with A.S. Roma, a 3-1 win over Piacenza Calcio. He won one scudetto with Roma in 2001.

Tommasi played for the Italian national team that won the 1996 European Under-21 Championship and for the 1996 Olympic Games squad in Atlanta. He made his first senior squad appearance for the Azzurri on November 18, 1998 against Spain, but did not become a regular until 2001. He played in all four of Italy's matches at the 2002 World Cup.

During a summer friendly match against Stoke City in 2004 he suffered a horrible knee injury, caused by Gerry Taggart [1], and was out of action for a long time. In the summer of 2005 he accepted a one-year contract from Roma with youth player wages - a contract which, astonishingly, Tommasi instigated himself in the name of fairness. On October 30, 2005, he finally returned to play, entering on the second half in place of team mate Olivier Dacourt during a league match against Ascoli Calcio 1898, being even hailed with a long standing ovation by the A.S. Roma supporters.

On July 18, 2006, after 10 years at Roma, Tommasi joined Levante.

i heard he negotiated a normal salary, say 30k a week, but took youth team wages with the rest being paid by roma to various italian charities?
anyone know any more about this?

KdjaCL

he took the italian version of minimum wage, the "legend" totti demanded 120k a week the same summer.

Fair balls to him but tbh hes not really that good and would have dropped a league if he didnt sign that contract.


kdjac

LuckyLloyd

Anyone remember when Angelo Di Livio decided to stick with Fiorentina for the long haul up from seria C after they were forcefully demoted? Didn't he agree to work for minimum wage aswell? Heroes.

That being said, football is a business and professional footballers only have a limited career expectation in terms of the time they have to make money from the game. Fans shouldn't really get up in arms about the money that is earned by them. At the end of the day, the value of money is relative and it is very easy to forget that.

Fratton Fred

good to see footballers motivated by something other than their bank balance or their dicks tbh.

Fair play to him.

ThE_IVIAcIVIAIV

a good few juve fans took a wage cut last year when they went down to serie b. heroes!

godtabh

When Redondo signed for AC Milan from Real he got injured and as a sign of good faith or what ever didnt want to get paid until he could play again. He was out for a long time. Wonder what ever happened to him

eZe^

He also got no wages from Levante for the first half of the season, they only started paying their players a couple of weeks ago.