Ibra Cassama isn’t a household name, and neither is Real SC, the club he plays for in Portugal.
Yet he’s been helping a campaign in Portugal which sees footballers assist the local community during the current Covid-19 crisis. It’s not just money being donated by stars, but real work going on behind the scenes, to find out what is needed and to provide it as quickly as possible.
Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes has been part of the campaign, even delivering food and aid packages personally in the Porto region.
Cassama has this weekend been speaking to Portuguese newspaper Record, and the situations he’s finding, and the help from people like Fernandes, has left him truly emotional.
Record asked which event during his quest to help has marked him the most: “There were several. My colleagues call me to tell me about situations that leave me touched, but there was really a more remarkable one. I went to a house and the guy lives with four children and the father who is bedridden, connected to an oxygen cylinder. He opened the fridge and there was nothing there. He didn’t even have diapers for his son, there was a prescription from the pharmacy and he didn’t have the money to pick it up. When I saw the situation they were in, I started to cry.”
appeared asking how he could join the group and was also soon available to help. He even went to distribute food with Madureira. Here is the case of a person with much more visibility and who left his comfort zone to help others, when he was under no obligation to do so, but wanted to participate. At that time, he was not the Manchester United player but a person like us… Basically, we are all the same.”
Perhaps we are all the same, but people like Ibra Cassama are doing a lot more than most.
