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When the 2022 FIFA World Cup will kick off in Qatar in November, all eyes will be on Sadio Mane.
The Bayern Munich striker has become a household name in the sport following his goalscoring exploits for Liverpool in the English Premier League and guiding Senegal back to the top of the table. African football. African football.
But the reality is that football is not everything in Mané's life.
His true motivation is to improve the lives of his countrymen through generous donations and initiatives, while inspiring those around him through good deeds behind closed doors.
As the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games , we take a closer look at how one of Senegal's favourite sons is transforming his homeland for good
Sadio Mane celebrates with the 2019 Champions League trophy after Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur in the final. (Getty Images 2019)
Sadio Mané: Growing up in poverty
Born in Bambali, Mané grew up in abject poverty and his father – a local imam – died of illness when the future sports star was seven years old.
"I thought, 'Now I have to do my best to help my mother.' It's a hard thing to deal with when you're so young," he said. to the Guardian in an interview in 2020.
He saw football as a way out, but it was difficult to get noticed at first.
“I had no one behind me to push me to achieve my dream. But I never stopped dreaming.”
Aged 15, Mané made the nearly 500-mile journey in secret to the Senegalese capital Dakar in the hope that someone might spot his precocious talent.
Following difficult conversations with his family, he was signed to local academy Génération Foot.
It wasn't long before the French Ligue 1 club, FC Metz, does not notice his raw abilities and offers him a dream transfer to Europe.
Despite his relegation in 2012, Mané had done enough to earn a call-up to the Senegal squad for the 2012 London Olympics He started every game until the team's quarter-final exit against eventual champions Mexico, but those performances were enough to earn him a move to Red Bull Salzburg in Austria
An impressive two-year stint in the Bundesliga saw him score 31 goals, and in 2014 he moved to the English Premier League with Southampton . .
After another two incredible years, Jurgen Klopp brought the striker to Liverpool in 2016 for $46 million (€40 million), where he was expected to become one of the best players in the world.
In 2022, he joined the German giant from Bayern Munich.Play
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MEX v SEN – Men’s Quarter-Final – Football | London 2012 Highlights
Sadio Mané: Senegal above all
Despite helping Liverpool win the 2019 UEFA Champions League, the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup and scoring 90 goals in 196 appearances, success with Senegal trumped everything else for Mané in football.
He was celebrated at home in 2019 after being named African Footballer of the Year, bringing the award back to his country 17 years after his compatriot El Hadji Diouf won it in 2001 and 2002.
At the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, which was postponed to 2022 due to the pandemic, Mané wanted his countrymen to get closer to the action and personally paid for 50 fans to fly to Cameroon and watch their semi-final victory over Burkina Faso.
Senegal eventually sent their country into raptures after a 4-2 penalty shootout win over Egypt in the final, in which Mane scored the decisive goal.
He recalled the final as "the best day of his life" and was later named player of the tournament at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
"I've won the Champions League and a few [other] trophies, but this one is special for me. It's the most important for me," he told reporters after the match.
“I am happy for myself, my people and my whole family.”
Death contract
Representing Senegal is so important to Mané, in fact, that he would be willing to die for the team.
Earlier in this Africa Cup of Nations campaign, he suffered a serious head blow in the final group game but still wanted to play in the quarter-finals`.
Both Liverpool and Senegal medical staff recommended that he sit out the match in order to fully recover, but the player refused and offered to sign a contract stipulating that any accidents, including his potential death, would be his personal responsibility.
"If I die, they can say it's my fault. It's nobody's fault. They said 'Sadio, you can't play' but I said 'no, no, that's out of the question'," Mane told Pro Direct Soccer . . France .
They eventually agreed that the Senegal talisman would be tested on match day and the results would determine whether he would play or not, and he ended up playing 90 minutes.
Sadio Mané Why would I want ten Ferraris?
Despite all these footballing achievements, Mané is best known in his hometown of Bambali for his incredible generosity.
To date, he has transformed the neighborhood by building a school, a hospital, a post office, a gas station and a mosque, worth more than $800,000 (€811,076.00).
The hospital is of particular importance because it serves more than 30 villages and includes a maternity ward that is expected to significantly improve Senegal's average mortality rate of 315 deaths per 100,000 births.
“Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches and two jet planes? What would that do for the world? I was starving, working in the fields, playing barefoot and not going to school. Now I can help people,” the 30-year-old recently told TeleDakar.
But Mané's impact in the region goes even further.
He donated $50,000 (€50,703.25) during the COVID-19 pandemic to ease pressure on local medical services, and today he gives $70 (€70) a month to many of the poorest families in the area to cover their basic needs.
Top-performing students at Bambali High School receive cash rewards from Mané, and he has also provided the school with laptops as well as free sports equipment and installed 4G internet in the village.
Thanks to these generous acts, the footballer received the very first Socrates Prize at the 2022 Ballon d'Or ceremony in France for "The best social initiative by committed champions".
Mané also likes to give back to his hometown in person.
In June 2022, he returned home to play a football match on a muddy pitch he used to play on, alongside fellow Senegalese football star El Hadji Diouf and Papiss Cissé.
His achievements in the UK and abroad also saw him become that rarest of phenomena: a universally loved professional footballer, despite breaking the hearts of many opposition fans with his goals.
In the seconds after winning a first ever FA Cup, following a penalty shootout victory over Chelsea in May 2022, his first thought was to console the opposing goalkeeper and his international team-mate, Edouard Mendy .
A similar scene took place during the CAN final, where he took the time to throw an arm over his defeated Liverpool teammate, Mohamed Salah.
Elsewhere, he was spotted cleaning the toilets at a local Liverpool mosque just hours after scoring in a 2-1 win over Leicester City in 2018.
While they may seem like small gestures to some, they are also important reminders that there is much more to life than football for Mané.
They recall that the boy from Bambali values above all being a good human being.
