For the second time in six months, another Boston-based group is\u00a0making waves on the international soccer front.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After New England Sports Ventures, the ownership group that own the Boston Red Sox,\u00a0bought Liverpool last fall, it appears that another Red Sox partner, Thomas DiBenedetto, is in talks along with five other investors to buy Italian Serie A club AS Roma.<\/p>\n
Roma is currently co-owned by the Sensi Family and UniCredit SpA.\u00a0 The Sensi Family gained wealth from the late Franco Sensi, an oil tycoon and former Mayor of Visso, a town in central Italy in between Ascoli and Perugia.\u00a0 Sensi\u2019s daughter Rosella is the current owner of AS Roma.<\/p>\n
Roma, who currently sit sixth in the Italian Serie A, has been struggling to fill the stadium and boost sales.\u00a0 The Italian soccer market took a major hit after the 2005-2006 season, when refereeing scandals punished two clubs and hurt the image of the league.<\/p>\n
AS Roma shares the Stadio Olimpico with Lazio and generated 8.7 million euros from ticket sales last year — a mere\u00a0tenth of what Arsenal takes\u00a0in\u00a0at Emirates Stadium in London.<\/p>\n
Roma, which won its last Italian title in 2001, was put up for sale in July\u00a0after the Sensi family accumulated a whopping\u00a0debt of more than 300 million euros ($416 million) with Milan-based UniCredit. The bank agreed to swap the debt for equity and jointly owns a 67 percent stake in the team with the Sensis\u2019 oil company Italpetroli SpA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NESV partner Thomas DiBenedetto is eyeing the purchase of Italian club AS Roma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/thomas-dibenedetto-roma.jpg?fit=320%2C203&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3707,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions\/3707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}