By Andrew Warshaw
June 25 – Qatar’s state-of-the-art Aspire Academy, one of the world’s most sophisticated sports facilities and constantly being promoted by the Gulf state as a key part of its 2022 World Cup programme, is showing its humanitarian face by linking up with Argentine and Barcelona icon Lionel Messi in the fight against malaria.
Despite being embroiled in tax evasion allegations in his homeland, Messi has agreed to travel to the Aspire Academy branch in Senegal at the end of this month to show his support to help reduce one of the world’s most crippling diseases.
Speaking ahead of his visit, the four-time World Player of the year said: “I know my trip to Senegal will be difficult because I will see the suffering that malaria causes, but I know that we have a great chance to use the power of football to help save lives.
“Every 90 minutes 180 children die from this horrible disease in Africa, but almost all of these can be avoided by using bed nets. Football Combating Malaria is a very special project to me because I know it will help save thousands of young lives, and I’m delighted to be involved and throw my support behind it.”
As part of its Aspire Football Dreams concept, the academy is donating an initial 400,000 mosquito bed nets across 10 countries in Africa. This will grow to one million bed nets each year throughout Africa.
The initiative will also see a medical person placed in every town where the project is active to identify and control malaria symptoms in players and their families involved in the academy’s scouting programme.
Ivan Bravo, Director General of the Aspire Academy, said Messi’s visit “will really help spread the message to children and their families in Africa that malaria can be avoided by using bed nets. “
“Our approach is to use the power of football to prevent this horrible disease, but we will also be working closely with local medical practitioners to ensure tablets and drips are administered as soon as possible if malaria symptoms appear in the villages we are working in.”
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