Galatasaray and DR Congo’s soccer star Cedric Bakambu wins Fifpro’s Player Impact Award
France-born Galatasaray DR Congo’s soccer striker Cedric Bakambu has been handed the “Player Impact Award” of Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels, largely known as FIFPRO.
The 32-year-old player won the award for his foundation, Cedric Bakambu Foundation’s work.
The charity aims to develop people in DR Congo by providing education on literacy, health, new technologies, sport, and the country’s history.
FIFPRO welcomed the work of the foundation which has supported, financed, and created various initiatives, including a visceral cancer and endocrine surgery research project in France that supported a hospital in Kinshasa.
The charity also seeks to develop people in DR Congo by providing education on literacy, health, new technologies, sport, and the country’s history. “It was on my first trip to DR Congo, responding to a call-up to the national team, that the idea of creating a Foundation came to me. I was 23 and I was shocked by the appalling living conditions of countless children. I was stunned, physically and morally devastated, by so much misery, by that inescapable begging,” Bakambu said after receiving the award.
“I remember my thoughts then turned to my parents. What if they hadn’t left their country and moved to France, where I was born: would I too have been one of those kids myself, left to my own devices, with nothing to look forward to, no hope, no reason to believe in the future? I had to do something; I had to find a way of offering those poor lost children the opportunities I had when I was their age.”
The award ceremony took place during FIFPRO’s annual general assembly in South Africa last week.
“When doing something for society, it should benefit the community rather than the individual. That is what Cedric is doing. He is using sport and his foundation to support education, regardless of who these people are or what they do. It is all about making people inclusive in society,” the jury said.
