Saka's Socrates Award win reveals years of secret charity work
Bukayo Saka's appearance at the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London came with a twist few expected. While Harry Kane claimed the night's top on pitch prize, Saka, still carrying a thigh injury suffered just days earlier against Kane's Bayern Munich, took to the stage at the London Palladium to collect the Socrates Award for humanitarian work.
Saka reached into his suit pocket and read a letter from a 14 year old boy in Rwanda whose eyesight had been restored through his charity efforts, joining a roll of honour that includes Vinicius Junior, Sadio Mane and Luis Enrique as previous winners.
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Daily Mail Sport has since detailed the scale of Saka's four year involvement with the BigShoe charity, a German based organisation that funds operations, feeds children and provides disaster relief around the world. His work has helped restore sight for a teenager in Rwanda and funded life saving procedures for 120 children in Nigeria.
How it began with a random email
BigShoe president Valerie Fiesser told Daily Mail Sport that Saka's involvement started unexpectedly in early 2022. “He just really randomly wrote us an email,” she said. “He asked us if we can help together in Nigeria after seeing a project of another soccer player. He said, 'I want to help children, I want to help people and can we do something'. (It was) really just random.”
That message led to a 2022 project funding 120 medical operations for children in Nigeria, some suffering from brain tumours and hernias. “This was an incredible project because it was the first project in Nigeria together with him,” Fiesser said. “It was really life changing for the children because some had a brain tumour, some had hernia problems.”
'He is really pushing how he wants to help'
Fiesser described Saka as deeply hands on, often messaging her directly while projects are underway. “Bukayo is really, really productive,” she said. “He is really pushing how he wants to help. I think for him it is never fast enough to help. Sometimes Bukayo comes up with projects and he says, 'Shouldn't we help here?' So he is really interested in it. It is not like he is just sending money and saying, 'OK, nice, we'll do a project in Nigeria'.”
She added that during disaster relief work in Morocco and Turkey, Saka questioned the practical details of the aid being delivered. “We did a disaster relief where we provided homes for the earthquake victims in Morocco and Turkey and he was asking questions like, 'Do they have electricity there?'” Fiesser said. “He is really thinking, 'Is it worth it, does it make sense to do this, or is it just putting the container and then the people do not have water and they cannot live there?' So he is really, really smart. And yes, I think he is an amazing human.”
Saka's mother, Adenike, has also played a central role in identifying and delivering projects, with the family visiting Rwanda in person during a recent school renovation that included water filters, girls' changing rooms and a new library. “We decide together where we can help, how we can help and then we actually help together,” Fiesser said.
The charity's next project, providing food packages to hungry families, is set to launch in November and December. For Saka, the recognition in London stands as confirmation that his impact stretches far beyond matchdays for Arsenal and England.
