The Roma president, Jim Pallotta, first saw the photo that moved the world on the front of his newspaper last week and his heart dropped.

“To see a three-year-old boy lying [dead] on the beach you just say ‘enough is enough,’” Pallotta said on Tuesday morning from his office in Boston. “If you can’t get affected by that then you can’t get affected by anything.”

Instantly he knew Roma needed to do something to help as refugees fled war in the Middle East, seeking safety in Europe. Discussions with team officials led to an idea: What if football could unite to bring money and support to people arriving in Europe with nothing? They put together a global fundraising effort called “Football Cares” which they hope can bring football teams and leagues into a single organization to collect money for charities working directly with refugees.

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“It’s not about Roma it’s about the refugees,” Pallotta said announcing the initiative. “We’ve already heard from a number of football clubs and also people in other sports. We’ve heard from people in tennis, the NHL and American soccer.”

Roma made an initial donation of $643,000 (£418,000), which includes $280,000 that Pallotta personally contributed. Fiorentina, Bologna and Torino have said they will support Roma’s initiative. Match-worn shirts from three Roma players – Francesco Totti, Edin Dzeko and Miralem Pjanic – have been put up for auction with proceeds going to Football Cares.

Several teams throughout Europe have announced programs to aid refugees. Bayern Munich have already said they will donate €1m, and will also set up training camps where children can get meals and learn German. Other German clubs are reported to be considering similar moves.

Pallotta’s plan differs in that it hopes football will join together under the single banner of Football Cares. His belief is that a united organization will raise more money than individual raising their own funds locally.

Putting something like this together was not easy, however. The images of the child on the beach came just before a three-day holiday weekend in the US. Several Roma workers in both the US and Italy had to scramble to build the website and then test it to be sure the first donations were processed.

Pallotta has owned Roma for three years and in that time has been amazed at the power of international football. He had been a part-owner of the NBA’s Boston Celtics previously and was stunned when he took over Roma at the reach the club had. “It was massive, massive,” he said. This understanding made him realize that Roma can be used to help refugees on a worldwide level.

Mia Hamm will be the spokesperson for Football Cares. Hamm is a Roma board member but is an interesting choice to lead an international football movement. She is well-known in the US and still a popular figure there but she has been retired for over a decade.

Pallotta said, however, that when he went to the board with this idea she was one of the first people to speak up asking how she can help. “I said: ‘Great, you can be the spokesperson,’” Pallotta said. “I think Mia is a 100% better spokesperson than me. She’s got football cred, I don’t.”

In a way, Football Cares is an experiment. Can a big international sports team lead a fundraising effort throughout the world? If Roma is successful in bringing together clubs for a cause will this become a model for sports organizations to unite for similar endeavors in the future?

On Tuesday, Pallotta waved away questions about Roma’s lead on this issue saying the crisis is bigger than the team. But the response of Roma and other teams in recent days shows how sport can have a huge impact in drawing attention to social issues and be used to drive donations that might otherwise have never come.

