After coming second place for the 2022 Ballon d’Or, 30-year-old Sadio Mane become the second African player to win the coveted trophy and stand on the podium after George Weah’s victory in 1995. He also left the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, France, with the inaugural Socrates Award.
He is the inaugural winner of the Socrates Award, which recognizes football players’ accomplishments off the field. In his hometown of Bambaly in Casamance, western Senegal, Sadio Mané opened a brand-new hospital last year.
In a few months span, he invested nearly a million dollars in the building of infrastructure, including a school.
The Bayern Munich winger offers each family in the village a monthly support package of almost $70 and has also awarded nearly $400 bonus to the top pupils in the village high school.
The humanitarian prize was named after the late Brazil midfielder Socrates. He died in 2011 aged 57. He was chosen by France Football -one of the Ballon d’Or’s organnizers- because of the involvement of this Brazilian international midfielder in the famous “Corinthian Democracy”.
An elated Mane could not hide his joy after scooping the Socrates Award and pledged to do more.
“I’m really happy to be a guest tonight,” he said. “Sometimes, I’m a bit shy, but I’m really happy to do what I can do for my people to make things better.”
He was also instrumental in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
“The Socrates Prize identifies the best social initiative by committed champions,” organisers of the award France Football Magazine said.
The prize is named after the footballer Socrates who co-founded the Corinthians Democracy Movement in opposition to the ruling military government in the 1980s in Brazil.
Sadio Mane who is also the African Footballer of the Year, helped Senegal clinch their first Africa Cup of Nations crown earlier in the year.
