Exclusive | Vincent Kompany: globally engaged Citizen
Belgian captains Manchester City but puts charity work and education on a par with the high-stakes Premier League challenge
Her son is a millionaire who speaks five languages and spends his free time helping charities and studying; he also happens to be captain of one of the richest football clubs in the world. Jocelyne Kompany may have been Belgian, but you suspect she had a bit of the Asian "Tiger Mother" about her.
Manchester City's Vincent Kompany could have joined rivals United as a teenager, but his late mother insisted he finish his baccalaureate. While many Premier League stars seem chiefly concerned with adding the latest Louis Vuitton toiletries bag to their collection or another model-shaped notch to their bedpost, Kompany has never forgotten his roots growing up poor near Brussels' red light district.
In Hong Kong for the Barclays Asia Trophy, Kompany speaks to the Sunday Morning Post ahead of the launch for "Hong Kong Friends of SOS Children's Villages", an initiative to boost awareness of, and support for, the international charity.
Founded in Austria in 1949, it supports orphans and families at risk of separation due to war, disasters and disease, by providing family-based care in "villages" with shared facilities. They cater for 1.57 million children and adults in 133 countries, with 500 programmes in Asia caring for more than 200,000 people.
"This is a charity I've been supporting for I think over 10 years now, maybe eight years," says Kompany, 27. "A lot of charities were asking for my support, and as I always do I read up on it a bit. One of the things that they were asking me was to go to Congo to see the work they were doing. As soon as I saw the village in Rwanda and the second one in Congo, I realised those were the kinds of projects I liked to support."
Understandably it resonated: Kompany's father Pierre is a Congolese refugee. "My father didn't come all the way he did to give me chances and for me to fail," he said in a 2011 interview.
"There's a lot of organisations that do great work in Congo, but it's always where you feel the closest to, where you feel the bond," he says. "Youth is always the future of any country. Sometimes if you forget about those who are most in need you actually miss out on the opportunity of creating great human beings and SOS gives that opportunity."