Chelsea and Ivorian football legend, Didier Drogba has offered his hospital in Ivory Coast to be used as a Coronavirus treatment centre.
The hospital, which is based in the city of Abidjan was opened in 2016 and named after former Ivory Coast footballer Laurent Pokou, who passed away in the same year the hospital opened.
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Vincent Toh Bi Irie, the head of Abidjan’s regional council, has praised Drogba for his ‘patriotic gesture,’ saying the hospital will help them fight the disease.
‘We thank Drogba for this gift considered as an act of patriotism,’ Toh Bi said.
In Ivory Coast, there are over 500 Coronavirus cases with five deaths recorded so far, but the country is preparing for a huge jump in cases following claims that African countries are in grave danger of becoming the most affected in the world.
Didier Drogba who retired from football in 2018, played for Le Mans and Guingamp before joining Marseille, where he later left for Chelsea in 2004 for a then club-record fee of £24m.
He scored 164 goals in 381 appearances over two spells with Chelsea, helping them win the Premier League four times and the Champions League in 2012, as well as four FA Cup triumphs and three League Cup victories.
Drogba also played for Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua as well as Galatasaray in Turkey, Major League Soccer franchise Montreal Impact and Phoenix Rising in the US.
For country, he scored 63 goals in 104 games for Ivory Coast, playing in the 2006, 2010 and 2014 World Cup.
