A Refreshing Story..

[MSingh]

One of ours of course..

Bellamy plans academy in Africa

West Ham and Wales striker Craig Bellamy plans to build a football academy in Sierra Leone to try to help develop the country's young talent.

Bellamy visited the war-torn country last year and was so impressed by the local playing talent that he vowed to help them improve facilities.

He has now set up the Craig Bellamy Foundation, which will start to build an academy in the capital Freetown.

"Because of the war, children haven't had any opportunity," he said.

"They haven't been thrown a football, they've been thrown a gun.

"Now we can give them a chance that their fathers or grandfather's never had. That's the buzz for me.

"I'm not looking to find and sell players. 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 has reportedly invested nearly US$1.28m of his own money into the foundation and the academy is set to include 14 new leagues and 68 new boys' teams and employ 141 managers and coaches.

While improving the country's football is Bellamy's primary motivation, he also hopes the foundation will lead to more youngsters receiving health awareness education.

[Spit the Dog]

It's nice to hear something positive about Craig Bellamy. There is no doubting that he is a class player but during the last few years he's managed to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway as he spends half his footballing career out injured it's not surprising that he's finding other things to keep himself occupied. Lets' hope all goes well with the academy.

[mrtoad]

Good on him, as Spit as said he doesn't normally get much positive news written about him, but at least on this ocassion it's something really positive and worthwhile.

[The Vulcan]

Probably golf next - he was quite handy with a club when he was at LFC!