Footballers in the news for the right reasons

It’s not very often you see footballers past and present in the news, and you say, ‘Wow, that’s impressive’. Today’s much pampered, excessively paid top stars too often appear to be more concerned about their next supercar or mock Tudor mansion they’re buying . I recently watched the Cristiano Ronaldo documentary, aptly named Ronaldo, in which there’s a scene with his son as they go to the garage where he has about ten super cars there. He asks his son, ‘What car is missing - from his collection ? After some prompting his son says, ‘Papa the Ferrari.'

In this intimate documentary Ronaldo clearly wanted the world to know he had a garage full of supercars.

In sharp contrast, and which gave me the wow factor, three working class men, all raised on council estates - Rio Ferdinand, Mark Noble and Bobby Zamora, have come together with a business consortium to build 1300 homes comprising of nearly half will be social and affordable housing. It’s a 400 million pounds project, and whilst their names clearly add to attract the business investment needed for the project, the three men will also put their own money into the scheme, which will be built near Luton.

Ferdinand has always spoken about growing up on a council estate in South London, and as tough and rough as it might have been, Ferdinand and the other partners acutely understand the importance on a child to have a home to call their own. And for their parents or parent to know that with affordable rents that won’t be hiked up at the whim of the landlord this gives them one less thing to worry about.

West Ham captain, Mark Noble said the trio wanted to do something longer-lasting than an hour-long appearance at a charity or community event. That means building low-cost homes - each scheme will have 45-50% social and affordable housing - and offering community services such as adult education classes.

Noble said:

We want to create something special. I moved seven times in four years in social housing in east London [as a kid]. We know what it feels like. We used to see the ‘no ball games’ signs everywhere. Our motto is to have a sign saying ‘all ball games allowed’ ".

Good luck to these guys with this project. All three men have been leaders on the field - Zamora and Noble still are - but off the field, this is true leadership, and should be a lesson to other players blessed with god given talents that attract huge financial rewards. Have the cars and big house if you want, but also think about what you can do with your fame and fortune.

Simon Woolley