Storelli, which manufactured protective headgear for ManU's Wayne Rooney, launched a fundraising drive in London, "partly through crowdsourcing, to grow a business at a time when debate is growing on how to prevent sports head injuries," according to Roger Blitz of the FINANCIAL TIMES. That debate is fueled in part by lawsuits in the U.S. over American football-related concussion claims and a $70M fund announced last month by the NCAA, the governing body of U.S. college sports, "to settle a class-action lawsuit over head injuries." Heightened by a series of head injuries during the Brazil World Cup, practitioners of the game "may have to consider adding headgear to that paltry list." That "is certainly the hope of Claudio Storelli, a former McKinsey consultant, who sent Rooney the foam-lined headguard on the off-chance that it might come in handy." Italian-born Storelli, who came up with the idea, said, "We knew we had something on our hands that would allow him to play almost immediately, and we sent it to the staff. The team got it on a Thursday and he was using it on the Sunday. We have an autographed version of the headgear in our office." Storelli's first market is junior football in the U.S., where Storelli is based, hoping to appeal to the legions of "soccermoms" likely to be concerned about the debate over head injuries. Storelli said, "The U.S. will continue to be the core of our revenue next year. We are entering major distribution channels. But the fundraising will go to making the European market aware of what we are doing" (
FT, 8/3).
