ANTONIO RUDIGER is using his World Cup bonus to fund surgery for disabled children in Sierra Leone.
The former Chelsea defender, 29, is funding life-changing surgery for 11 youngsters in his mother’s home country.
Rudiger said: “It hurts to see the circumstances the children in Sierra Leone are growing up.
“Unfortunately, nothing can be taken for granted for these children.
“In Germany I have been given the opportunities that many people in Sierra Leone are denied.
“I am grateful for these opportunities and appreciate enormously the privileged situation I find myself in.
“Helping here is a matter of honour for me.
“I would like to implement many more projects in Sierra Leone with my family in the future.”
The children are mainly suffering from inborn clubfeet, where they are born with an Achilles tendon that is too short meaning their feet turn down and inward.
If untreated, the patients would be left on crutches for the rest of their life, though the surgery is expensive in West Africa.
The children are from a town called Lunsar in Sierra Leone.
Rudiger, who is part of Germany’s World Cup squad in Qatar, was born in Berlin to a mother from Sierra Leone.
The Real Madrid defender travelled to the country in January this year and next year will launch the Antonio Rudiger for Sierra Leone Foundation.
