JUAN MATA
“People underestimate football. It gives hope to so many people”
The Spanish international, who won the World Cup, European Championship and the Champions League, will donate 1% of his salary to Common Goal.
At the beginning of this season, Juan Mata helped launch the Common Goal movement. The Manchester United midfielder announced over social media that he will donate at least one percent of his salary to high-impact football charities from all around the world. Then, he called on other professional football players such as the German World Champion, Matt Hummels & Alex Morgan to do the same.
Mata’s grand ambition is to reach a position where 1% of football’s entire multibillion dollar industry is donated to charity.
LADJI DOUCOURE
“We attract kids with their own codes, their own envy. We want them to enjoy their day and make them discover athletics as a great tool for social cohesion, sharing and respect”
Bring the stadium in the suburbs. This idea led the former 110m hurdles World Champion Ladji Doucouré to create Golden Blocks 3 years ago.
Born near Paris, from Malian and Senegalese parents, Doucouré was highly involved in sports and especially athletics. He finally specialized in hurdling and sprint and became 2x World Champion in 2005.
Committed to give back to society what society gave him, he created “Golden Blocks” in 2015. This sporting event uses all the urban culture symbols with several battles. No timekeeping, the start is given by a DJ and two speakers. In 2017, after 10 stages in France, Ladji Doucouré exports Golden Blocks towards the Senegalese youth during the 1st Caravane for Peace.
KHALIDA POPAL
“It was a huge honour to captain my country but it was an even bigger honour to be seen as a role model and an inspiration for thousands of young girls and women in Afghanistan. I think the Afghanistan women’s team shows the huge potential football has as a unifying force. I like to think that we have given a lot of women in our country fresh hope”
Football became her way of political expression and her basis for human and women’s rights activism. To her, football was the only way to fight for women’s rights and to bring about change in society. By doing this, she faced extreme social opposition and had to leave her home country.
In April 2011 Popal decided to leave Afghanistan for security reasons after receiving death threats. Now Popal is living in Denmark, using sport to empower and improve inclusion and social participation of minority groups such as immigrants, refugees, and LGBTQA in EU through the foundation she founded: “Girl Power Organisation”.
The voting campaign for the Champion of the Year is now closed