New Delhi: Former French international Zinedine Zidane is utilising his life past the hype and hoopla of football, lending a voice to many causes he believes in. This time around it was the 'Red Ball Initiative' in the Greek capital of Athens.
It's been almost a year since Zidane bid goodbye to the game he played for over a decade. And now, the former World Player of the Year is giving back to the sport that gave him so much. After his Asia tour last year, the Frenchman was in Athens this week to promote the Red Ball Initiative.
"I want to see what's happening beyond the little world I've been living in, when I was just focusing on football, on winning games and all those little things that were part of my everyday life. Now that I've retired, I really want to try and help people," Zindane says.
The Red Ball Initiative addresses development issues such as the lack of basic health, and tries to give the children a reason to believe in themselves all of this using the medium Zidane knows best - The Beautiful Game.
"'Right to Play' is a way to show them that it's okay for them to forget about all the problems they have to deal with everyday, and it's okay to just focus on the game, to hope for a better life, for a better world and to show them that there are people out there who care about them," Zidane adds.
The project is one among many others that the Frenchman has lent his name to, but it is possibly the closest to home for the legend.
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