Justin Pugh spent 11 years in the NFL, first as a first-round pick of the New York Giants, then with the Arizona Cardinals, before turning his attention to what comes after the career ends. His instinct wasn't retirement. It was construction.

His connection to Italy is both personal and strategic. His wife is Italian. They vacation there. On one of those trips, they found something unexpected: a community with genuine, deep passion for American football. Not a novelty crowd. Real fans, real players, real hunger for the game to be taken seriously.

That discovery led to the IFL Commissionership, and once inside the league, it became clear that the infrastructure gap was enormous. Italy had the demand. It didn't have the business. Justin decided to build it.

The New York Giants, the franchise he played for, is a team with proud Italian-American heritage and Syracuse University, Justin’s alma mater, has a campus in Florence. The northeast US, where he built his career, has the largest Italian-American population in the country. Milan and New York have always been connected. MAFC is the organization that turns that connection into a business.