West Ham
Bellamy proves you should never judge a book by its cover
AS the old saying goes, you shouldn't read every book by its cover.
That can certainly be said to be true of West Ham striker Craig Bellamy, a previously controversial and excitable character both on and off the pitch, who has invested £650,000 of his own money to launch a revolutionary football academy and league in war-torn Sierra Leone.
The 28-year-old first visited the West African nation, which endured civil war between 1991 and 2002, last summer, and was shocked by what he saw in a country that has the highest child mortality rate on earth.
Wales captain Bellamy decided to take direct action and this week launched the Craig Bellamy Foundation, complete with plans a for five-star residential academy in the capital Freetown, built on 25 acres of land donated by President Ernest Bai Koroma.
There, promising youngsters will receive coaching as well as a full-time education.
Aside from the academy, Bellamy also plans to develop 14 new leagues and 68 new boys' teams employing 141 managers and coaches, which he hopes will be up and running as soon as November.
The whole project is expected to have annual running costs of £550,000 and Bellamy is appealing for help from British businesses to help him realise his goals.
Despite the massive investment, including a large chunk of his personal wealth, the forward insisted he plans to remain involved with the project "until I'm a very old man".
And the footballer, who has made millions during a career with Norwich City, Coventry City, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United, Celtic, Liverpool and West Ham, also claimed he was not looking to make money.
"I'm not looking to find and sell players,"
Bellamy, who has joined forces with Manchester United's African scout Tom Vernon to launch his Foundation, told The Times.
"I'm not an agent. I want to make it clear that if any player does make it, any fee goes straight back into the academy."
Bellamy also hopes the Foundation's youngsters will learn how to look after themselves and their friends and families not only financially, but socially.
Players will take part in community projects, while their teams will be awarded extra points for fair play and good attendance records and their goal difference will be boosted if they correctly answer questions relating to HIV/Aids or other health issues.
Early projections suggest that as many as 81,000 children could benefit from the scheme - not bad going for the player Sir Bobby Robson once described as the "gobbiest" he had ever worked with.
For more information, log-on to www.craigbellamyfoundation.org
12:27pm Wednesday 7th May 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
