AS Roma’s transfer announcements have been a hit on social media over the past two summers.The Serie A club have regularly gone viral by producing creative videos and photoshopped images to unveil new signings.From Lorenzo Pellegrini playing FIFA to Steven Nzonzi being protected by fighter jets, every Roma announcement is a joy.But the Italian club are using their transfer announcements this summer for a more important matter.They will use each transfer announcement video to raise awareness about the search for missing children around the world.

How class is that?

Roma have partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States and Telefono Azzurro in Italy to bring attention to children who are missing.

Roma raise awareness for missing children

A statement on the club’s website reads: “In 2019, Roma are taking a completely different approach to announcing new signings - in an effort to use the club’s extensive digital media following and presence for social good.

“With each player signing announcement the club makes this summer, a video will be released that will feature the faces and details of a number of children who are currently missing - with the goal of generating publicity that could result in someone, somewhere, offering valuable information about the whereabouts of the missing child.

“Initially, the club will release two videos per player announcement through its social media accounts - one featuring Italian children, and one featuring American teenagers. The club is currently in talks with a British charity about providing information and photos on more children currently missing in Europe.”

Paul Rogers, head of strategy at AS Roma, explained where the idea came from.

“The idea for the new transfer announcement initiative actually came from reading an article about the 25th anniversary of Soul Asylum’s ‘Runaway Train’ video, which famously highlighted actual cases - with photos and names - of children missing at the time,” Rogers said.

“Taking inspiration from the use of milk cartons to display a photo of a missing child in America, the band’s video director Tony Kaye decided to use the medium of a pop video played on MTV and music channels globally to try and help find 36 missing children.

“In the end, I think they helped locate 21 children. There were four versions of the video made, two for the United States and one each for the UK and Australia.

“With Roma, we thought, we could try and do something similar but updated for the social media generation, which didn’t exist when Soul Asylum released their video.

“We want to use the viral nature of social media transfer announcements to help raise awareness for missing children.

“We have a massive social media following and our announcements generate incredible reach and awareness, all over the world, so we thought that at the exact moment when the world’s attention is on the club’s announcement, we could use our social media channels not for self-promotion but rather to help both the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Telefono Azzurro find missing children.”

Roma have made two signings this summer, completing deals for Leonardo Spinazzola and Amadou Diawara.

Click HERE to read more about the campaign and how you can help.