Florence, Italy (dpa) - Striker Stefano Borgonovo returned to the pitch 12 years after his last official game to tackle a life-threatening illness with the help of former team-mates and the public of Florence.

In an emotional evening at the Artemio Franchi, Golden Ball winner Roberto Baggio rolled his team mate's wheelchair to the centre of the field before the start of a benefit game that Monday night gathered some of the best current and former players of the Italian Serie A.

Two other Golden Ball winners, AC Milan's Ronaldinho and former star Ruud Gullit, who was recovering from surgery, were at the game between Fiorentina and AC Milan, the two major clubs where Borgonovo played. About 30,000 people almost filled the Artemio Franchi.

The aim of the event was to raise funds for the Fondazione Borgonovo, a foundation that the former footballer created to support researchers looking for a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that has hit an unusually high number of former footballers.

"I think tonight we gave life to something that will destroy the bitch," said Borgonovo through a computer program that converts his eye movements into words. In Florence, his words were visible on the stadium's giant screen.

The 44-year-old Borgonovo used a strong word for the disease that progressively damages the nerve cells controlling the body movements.

In early September, he announced he had contracted SLA. Later in the same month he took part in a benefit event before a game of lower-division Como, the team where he began a football career he ended in 2005 as youth-team coach.

"Stefano is a modern hero, capable of displaying his face and his sufferance to support the research on a little known disease," said Baggio, who apologized for not being fit to play. "I had preferred to return to Florence in another occasion, but I'm here with great pleasure. I hope it helps Stefano and his foundation."

SLA is a usually fatal illness that has puzzled researchers for its high incidence among footballers. In Italy, it affects six people out of 100,000, but a screening among footballers who played from the 1950s on showed that 40 in 30,000 contracted it.

It is also known as Lou Gehrig disease, from the star baseball player of the New York Yankees who died from it in 1941 at the age of 38. It progressively paralyses all body movements and blocks swallowing and respiration, which forces patients to breath through a tracheotomy and use a feeding tube.

One of its recent victims was Gianluca Signorini, a former defender of Parma, Roma and Genoa who died at 42 in 2002, while Fulvio Bernardini, who in the 1970s coached the Italian national team, also died from SLA. Beside Borgonovo, five other former footballers are currently ill.

Beside a possible genetic predisposition, some external factors can trigger SLA. Researchers suspect that the frequent leg and head traumas typical of football may have a role, but also the use of anti-inflammation drugs, doping and the presence of pesticides on football pitches are being considered.