KEY POINTS:
Four years ago Patrick Vieira stood in a barren field near the town of Saly on Senegal's west coast, looked at the red earth and the tumbleweed, and dreamt.
This week he returned to the country of his birth and saw the vision taking physical shape. It was there in bricks and mortar, in the classrooms and bedrooms of the Diambars Academy. More significantly, it was there in the flesh and blood of the young Senegalese boys living out their own dreams.
Vieira, Inter Milan's midfielder and captain of the French national team, has put his name, money and time behind a new kind of soccer school, one which is intended to produce not just footballers, but also engineers and bankers, technicians and teachers. Players will be sold for fees, but not until they are 18 and the fee will be reinvested in the school. The aim is to roll the project out across Africa, and beyond, using football's lure to draw boys into education.
This broad ambition marks Diambars out, even from the benevolent schools established by the likes of Brazil's Cafu, Czech Pavel Nedved and, in Uganda recently, England and Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand and his father.
It is a grand design, and a long haul, but 17-year-old Ali is proof Diambars can change people's lives. Four years ago Ali was a street kid, an orphan who spent his days using football tricks to beg. Then he heard of Diambars. He walked three days barefoot to attend a trial and won a place. He barely spoke Woloof, never mind French, the dominant languages of Senegal.
Now he can communicate in English, and operate a computer and a video camera. Should he fail to make the grade as a professional footballer, and his light frame suggests it may be a struggle, he will still have a future.
There are thousands of football schools in Africa, but most are there to benefit the businessmen who create them, and the agents who sell them, both preying on Africa's endemic poverty. "The kids are taken to Europe hoping to make money to support their families, and who can blame them?" says Vieira. "But most do not make it and they are dumped on the streets of Europe, unable even to get home. It is terrible."
Vieira is one of four footballers behind Diambars, which means champions in Woloof. The concept was created by Saer Seck, a former Senegalese player who became a successful entrepreneur, and Jimmy Adjovi-Boco, a Benin national who played in France and for Hibernian, in Scotland. Bernard Lama, the former France goalkeeper of French Guyanese extraction who had a spell with West Ham, was soon on board, along with Vieira.
Vieira left Senegal aged 8 when his mother went to France to seek a better life. He had become a World Cup winner with his adoptive country but was searching for a way to put something back. "We went to him and said, 'We have this project and we need your help'," says Seck. "After five minutes Patrick stopped us and said, "I have been thinking: what can I achieve for my country of origin? You have given me the opportunity. I will not just be a sponsor ... I will be involved.'
"Patrick brings his sponsors, adidas and Ford, and when he calls someone, we have the appointment." Tony Blair and the Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, have all answered Vieira's call. Unesco is on board and a representative joined Vieira on this trip to Senegal.
There was ample evidence, on the two-hour helter-skelter drive from Dakar to Saly, of both the national love for football and need for economic development. Children played on bare earth by open sewers on pitches whose touchlines were marked by old tyres, but were nevertheless invaded by wandering livestock. Counterfeit Arsenal and Inter Milan shirts were in evidence, proudly, if grubbily worn. Their owners could be looking to eke out a living trading anything from an old coathanger to a used battery.
The roadside shanties are a far cry from Diambars, with its well-appointed accommodation blocks, classrooms, changing rooms, medical facilities and IT suite. As Vieira looks around, the 87 pupils watch, at first in awe, before approaching him to talk. A three-hour press conference for local media follows, in sweltering heat - a real test of Vieira's commitment. Among the subjects are his disappointment at the lack of support from the Senegalese international team.
Almost on cue Manchester City's Ousmane Dabo appears. His father was Senegalese, but Dabo is French. "They have been approached to help," says Vieira when we chat later. "You do not want to push someone to be involved who does not want to, but I would expect the Senegalese players to want to. When I talk to the Arsenal boys, from the French national team, some are really happy to participate and they are not from Senegal."
It is only Vieira's second trip back to Senegal since leaving as a boy, the first being the visit to the bare Diambars site. "It feels really good to be back," he says. "To see all the work which has been done makes me feel proud and very happy. I had seen pictures on the internet but to see the kids here starting to use it is really different."
Vieira once described himself as "a French product with an African's hunger". Is he trying to build that combination here? "The kids here, in Senegal, in Africa, have the hunger that maybe Europeans do not have. What they need is the structure, someone who can help them focus their hunger, to express their quality. That is what we are doing at Diambars. What makes me really happy is they know how lucky they are, which is why they do not want to lose one day of work, that makes them special.
"As footballers we are in the spotlight because of the job we are doing, so sometimes we can achieve more than what you think. The money we can provide is important, but so is spreading the word to other people, to organisations with big influence like the G8. They said the focus should be on development of African countries, that is what we are doing here."
Vieira, 31 today, intends to keep playing at the top for another three years at least. "The African World Cup [South Africa, 2010] is a target."
Diambars is looking to South Africa, too, hoping to open its second academy there. An internet-based education programme is also being developed, for which Fifa funding is being sought. It is intended to launch in France and Senegal, then in South Africa and Scotland.
Why Scotland? "When I played there I saw the passion people have for football," says Adjovi-Boco. "Football can be a way to help kids understand a lot of things."
A meeting with the new right-wing French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is next on the agenda. Sarkozy, though "a divisive figure" admits Adjovi-Boco, has been supportive in the past. "If we are talking about immigration, the point is that if we build something strong in our countries, people will not want to leave for Europe," says Adjovi-Boco. "The G8 must understand it is in their interest to strengthen Africa."
First the Senegalese operation must expand to include satellites across the country, bringing in children aged 6 and 7. This will both improve talent identification, and drum in the education message.
"To enter this satellite the boys must be at school," says Seck. "We aim to develop education through football. To let boys know it is not football or school, it can be football and school. Football will not develop Africa, education will, but football can bring kids into education."
After a couple of days we head back to the airport, where the Vieira name again opens doors and eases progress. As he heads for the plane, shaking hands of well-wishers and ground-crew, Adjovi-Boco adds: "Patrick brings his name and his network but much more than that, his behaviour, his passion. He has heart, soul, intelligence, and a great dream about what he can achieve with football."
Then it is back to Europe, to a land where footballer's wedding snaps are sold for £1 million ($2.6 million) and young Africans - promised, exploited then rejected - do McJobs and wonder how to get home.
- INDEPENDENT
