Rome - The jersey worn by a fan of Antonio Cassano as he stormed onto the pitch during a game of the Italian national team is to be auctioned this week on the internet to benefit a non-profit organization. Mario Ferri, 22, was blocked by police on Saturday and charged with disturbing the Italy-Netherlands friendly after he briefly interrupted the game in Pescara.
Ferri donated the jersey - bearing a Superman logo and the words "Cassano in Nazionale" - to a benefit organization founded by AC Milan defender and world champion Massimo Oddo with two associates.
AMO, an acronym for Associazione Massimo Oddo - but also meaning "I love" - will
auction the jersey on eBay.
The association has already sold other items on
eBay - mostly
sports apparel - donated by footballers who wanted to help Oddo in his fund-raising efforts, which largely focus on education and social assistance in
Italy and abroad.
The money from the pro-Cassano jersey is to help the reconstruction of a soup kitchen in the town of L'Aquila, where hundreds of buildings were destroyed in an earthquake on April 6.
Although played down by Italy's coach Marcello Lippi, the pitch invasion found
support by other fans holding banners praising the in- form Sampdoria forward, whom Lippi appears set on not taking to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
