How An Italian Soccer Team’s Twitter Helped Find Missing Children

If you're not keeping up with the riveting world of European soccer (football for them, soccer for us) you are missing out! Language is no barrier in the world of soccer, it's all about the game. For the Italian team AS Roma, and the help of their passionate fans and huge following, they're promoting something more meaningful.

I was never aware, until recently. that AS Roma actually has a very active Twitter. A lot of sports teams have a Twitter account but apparently Roma's is using their handle to promote a more worthy cause. In July, their Twitter account started adding pictures of missing children and information whenever they would make an announcement of a transfer. The idea comes from their head of strategy Paul Rogers, who says he became "obsessed" with the song "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum that featured missing children in the music video, he told BBC Sport back in November:

"We had built up quite a sizable social media presence and going into the summer transfer window, we thought we had an opportunity to do something more meaningful. Football on social media can be quite toxic at times, and we thought we could do something that is the antithesis of that and could be embraced by all sorts of fans."

It worked because early in January, the social media campaign has helped find six missing children so far.

The Italian club has featured 109 cases in 72 different videos across 12 different countries. It's amazing to think that with the help of Roma's fans, six children were able to reunite with their families, and hopefully more will be reunited in the future.