With the coronavirus continuing to interfere with Italian and European football, Atalanta’s Curva Nord have made an incredible gesture to help the fight against the illness by donating €40,000 to the local hospital.
La Dea are competing in their first ever Champions League campaign this season, and will play at Mestalla on Tuesday evening in the second leg of their first knockout round game, which they take a 4-1 lead into.
But the game is being played behind closed doors in Spain, and with Italy on lockdown the Nerazzurri supporters are unable to watch what will, whatever the outcome, be a historic night for the Bergamo club.
The club’s ultras, though, have organised that their refunds will not return to supporters’ own pockets, but will instead be donated to the hospital in Bergamo in order to aid the ongoing battle against the coronavirus.
“This evening we were supposed to experience one of the most beautiful evenings in our history,” a statement from the ultras read via their Facebook page, Sostieni La Curva, on Tuesday.
“Instead this emergency situation puts everything in the background.
“Because in these last few weeks, in our city and province, there are heroes who are facing this challenge, working with insufficient resources and exhausting shifts for the health of everyone.
“That’s why we have decided to donate the sum of our away section tickets to the Bergamo hospital tonight and in the next few days we will make the transfer of €40,000.
“To those who asked us how to contribute, we invite you to donate to the IBAN coordinates of the Bergamo Hospital.
“Nothing can stop unity.”
