A shirt belonging to Didier Drogba was auctioned off in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire this week in an effort to raise funds for the Salomon Kalou Foundation, with the successful bidder acquiring the striker’s top for $7,500.
The foundation, which is run by Drogba’s former Chelsea and Ivorian national side team-mate Kalou, is currently in the process of constructing a private hospital which is designed to treat kidney diseases.
Kalou left Chelsea in 2012 to join Lille in the French Ligue 1, before moving on to Hertha Berlin in 2014. The 29-year-old remains in the German capital, and has been working hard to build his charity foundation with the specific goal of dealing with kidney problems for those less fortunate in his native country.
He has enlisted the help of his fellow professionals to raise funds for the hospital he is building, with Drogba, Gervinho and Yaya Toure all providing their football jerseys for auction.
Gervinho’s shirt raised $850, while that of current African Player of the Year Toure earned $3,500.
On top of the auctioned items, Kalou added a contribution of $25,000 to his foundation while Drogba donated a dialysis machine worth an estimated $50,000.
Speaking about his former team-mate, the Hertha Berlin winger had a glowing evaluation of his human qualities.
“Didier Drogba is a good person. When I arrived at Chelsea, I was just 20 years old. And we all know that at that young age earning big money could be a problem. But Drogba was always there to counsel and guide me,” Kalou revealed, according to SuperSport.
“Drogba is a very humble person. He has always been there for me. I owe him a lot,” he added.
In 2014 Kalou and his brother Bonaventure, who is now retired from football, made donations of dialysis machines to a number of hospitals in Cote D’Ivoire, where kidney disease remains an illness that the country is not well equipped to deal with.
Kalou championing this cause has done a great deal to improving the plight of those dealing with kidney issues in the country.
Drogba’s charitable efforts also involve the Ivorian healthcare landscape, as he is currently in the process of building a number of hospitals around the country. He opened the first facility in a district of Abidjan called Attecoube in April.
The facility is well equipped, with facilities which include an ultrasound room, a maternal and child protection unit, an x-ray section, an very modern laboratory, a well-stocked pharmacy and hospitalisation and isolation wards for a variety of illnesses. It will treat an estimated 50,000 patients per year.
