Being a football manager, a club president or a member of parliament is fun and exciting, because it allows you to experience the most intense of emotions.
You're on the frontlines and you are called upon to make important decision each day, choices which impact the political or sporting future of many others.
The flipside of the coin is that once your mandate ends (if you're an MP) or your contract expires (if you're a manager), you find yourself out of work and with very little to do.
During the 2002-03 season, we both found ourselves - for differing reasons - "unemployed". The time off allowed us to reflect upon many things, things which, in the past, we often neglected.
We realized that our lives until that point had been marked by the same routine: matches and trainining, wins and losses, interviews and hotels. We told ourselves there had to be more.
We had to DO more. We had to use our energy, time and resources to help those who were lacking the most valuable gift you can possess: health.
We knew that in some countries athletes are very engaged in charity and volunteer work, often within an organized structure.
We decided we wanted to do the same, ideally exploiting our twin passions: football and golf. Thus was born a dream, which became reality in November 2004, when we founded the Fondazione Vialli e Mauro per la ricerca e lo sport, a non-profit foundation.
We were fortunate to benefit from the help and advice of many who were crucial in the early stages of our project. To them goes our most sincere thanks.

And also a special thank you to Cristina Grande Stevens, our founding partner in this project.