Fredi Kanout\u00e9 jokes that he has joined a rock band but none of the motley crew he is touring with claims to be a professional musician. Instead the former West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sevilla striker shares stages around the world with extraordinary characters such as\u00a0Emi Mahmoud, a former Darfur refugee\u00a0and Poetry Slam world champion, and Dr Rouba Mhaissen, the economist and development activist ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the planet\u2019s most influential people under 30.<\/p>\n
They were among the speakers at a recent series of free public talks in European capitals including Paris and London and in May they have a date at the Lincoln Center in New York. Their aim? \u201cTo inspire people to take positive action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tour accompanies the release of\u00a0a book entitled How To Do Good, whose contributors include Kanout\u00e9, Melinda Gates and the former United States president Jimmy Carter, the whole campaign inspired by the philanthropist Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait. Kanout\u00e9 says that many footballers do charitable work but choose not to publicise it whereas he believes he has a responsibility to do so, explaining that if footballers can influence the public as much as advertisers seem to believe, then he should use that influence to promote good. \u201cAs long as your intentions are pure I think it\u2019s good to talk about it and create this emulation effect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Before considering how Kanout\u00e9 does good, it is interesting to ask\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0he does good. As a rich former footballer he could, after all, lead a life of self-indulgent luxury, far above the problems of the masses. \u201cI can\u2019t close my eyes,\u201d explains Kanout\u00e9, who speaks with a beatific charisma that makes it hard to doubt his sincerity.<\/p>\n \u201cI arrived at West Ham when I was 22 and it really started around that age. I think I received a good and humble education and I reverted to\u00a0Islam\u00a0when I was 20 years old. I was reading a lot and trying to understand. I was always attracted by spiritual matters so I was reading books about it and I always felt that my life had to have a purpose, that it was not just about working, eating, sleeping and doing the same again tomorrow. I always felt that hunger to be useful. Also there were some tragic events in life \u2013 loss of family members and things like that, which happen to everybody \u2013 all that kind of stuff put together.\u201d<\/p>\n Born and raised in France to Malian parents, he was also influenced by what he saw in his late teens when he visited Mali, the country for whom he would later choose to play. \u201cMy trips contributed to opening my eyes to another reality,\u201d he says. \u201cThe big disparities in wealth and conditions, people having close to nothing over there but nevertheless being more happy sometimes than people here. So on one hand I was developing a conscience that wealth and happiness are not always linked but at the same time there is a threshold that we shouldn\u2019t be under and unfortunately that was what I saw in Mali.<\/p>\n \u201cPutting all that together, I said: \u2018OK, I need to contribute in my way, for my own purpose and to be helpful to others.\u2019 It\u2019s a long journey but to make it simple, it\u2019s more that I always felt, especially when I started to practise my religion with more consciousness, that faith had to be materialised by acts, not only be something abstract in the heart or mind. It had to be followed by actions. I was a professional footballer and had this kind of fame and material comforts that go with it so I had no excuse to just turn my back.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2007, when he won a trio of trophies with Sevilla,\u00a0including the Uefa Cup, and was subsequently voted African player of the year, Kanout\u00e9 began setting up Sakina Children\u2019s Village, a complex 30km from Bamako, Mali\u2019s capital. He opened the village to give a home, healthcare and education to orphans who had been living rough. There are now some 65 residents and plans to increase that number to 150. Some of the first arrivals will soon be leaving to enter the working world.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the most beautiful part \u2013 to see the impact that you\u2019ve had to make their lives a bit easier,\u201d says Kanout\u00e9. \u201cAt the beginning we had many kids who were traumatised. Some of them we found in really sad conditions. Now they are teenagers. That\u2019s another challenge because now it\u2019s not just about meeting their basic needs; we\u2019ve started training them because they are almost young adults. That\u2019s why we have the school and the skill-training programme, so that they can learn a job. It\u2019s an ongoing challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a long process. And for the foster mothers that are helping it\u2019s not easy. Because the majority of the kids had some habits from the streets and weren\u2019t used to belonging to a place. We realised that some of them didn\u2019t want to stay because they had got used to street life. It\u2019s really fascinating the way we think sometimes we are helping people but they don\u2019t want your help \u2013 they have got used to another reality and for them the change is also traumatising. There are a lot of things involved in learning how to do good. We all know that we have to do good, but knowing how is the most important thing. It\u2019s more important to help just one person and have a positive impact than try to help 2,000 but not really have a positive impact because the concept is not right. So we\u2019ve learned a lot thanks to these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Kanout\u00e9, who is still involved in football through a management consultancy he runs, says he would rather be remembered for his work in Sakina than anything else. \u201cIt\u2019s always gratifying to be recognised as a good footballer but at the end of the day, especially as I am a believer, I know what I will be held accountable for. It\u2019s not because I\u2019ve scored some goals or won some trophies, it\u2019s about how I spent my time on Earth and what I did to really improve myself and be useful to others. I\u2019m not saying the rest is not important but there are different layers of importance.\u201d<\/p>\n His faith is his guiding influence and he acknowledges that in these times of strife that is a fact worth noting. \u201cBut something I\u2019ve never been is apologetic about being Muslim,\u201d he says. \u201cWe often see that before talking some Muslims have to almost feel sorry about being Muslim. They have to prove or justify themselves that they are not terrorists or whatever before being allowed to talk and I don\u2019t like this because you don\u2019t feel associated with the kinds of behaviour that certain Muslims or certain Christians have done.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel associated with the kind of terrible things that people who we sometimes can\u2019t even call Muslims have done. So I don\u2019t feel apologetic about it. But of course it is about creating bridges, not fighting each other. It\u2019s just that people governing us are using this kind of agenda for their personal interests and to get votes but I think that if you go into the street people are way more tolerant. Sometimes it\u2019s true that they get a little bit confused by what is said on TV or by what the politicians are saying. Obviously, this is a period where it is vital for everybody to come close together and not fear the other.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is going to be the big challenge. But nobody has to feel apologetic or whatever. We all know it\u2019s bad what certain people are doing on both sides but we should just work together with the same purpose against these wrongdoers. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n