THE SISTER of a boy missing for more than 40 years hopes a new global initiative will shed light on his case.

Sandy Davidson’s picture is being shared by Italian Football club Roma to raise international awareness of unsolved missing persons cases.

The club used the opportunity to unveil their new signing Croatian footballer Nikola Kalinic who is on loan from Atletico Madrid, to show posters of missing children from across the globe – and Sandy Davidson was one of the cases used.

The missing toddler vanished from his grandparent’s home on April 23 1976 when he was three-years-old.

Sandy was playing with his little sister Donna, then aged two, at the home in St Kilda Street, when the family dog escaped from the garden. It is believed Sandy followed the dog and has not been seen since.

Roma’s tweet on social media, which has been viewed more than a 100,000 times, said: “We’re using our transfer announcements on Twitter to help search for missing children.”

Sandy’s sister, who has spent the last 40 years fighting to keep Sandy’s case alive, says she is grateful to Roma for taking Sandy’s case global.

She told the Times: “It’s great because it’s getting missing people out to a global audience that might not have seen or heard of their case before.

“The fact that they are an international football club is great because millions of people like football so hopefully someone will see one of these pictures and it will jog their memories or encourage them to come forward with anything they might know.

“Personally I don’t think Sandy is alive anymore. I think he died back then and is buried somewhere near where he vanished from, but anything that helps to highlight his case is good for us.”