Ballon d'Or: The story of how Sadio Mane rose from poverty to become Africa's best finisher after Weah

The Ballon d'Or official website has shared the story of how Sadio Mané's path to football greatness nearly ended before it began, revealing that his father actively discouraged him from playing the sport as a child.

The publication detailed the difficult early life the Senegalese forward navigated before becoming one of Africa's finest footballers.

Mané was born and raised in Bambali, a small village on the banks of the Casamance River, where he grew up in poverty with no hospital, post office, or organised football of any kind nearby.

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His father, an imam, viewed football as a distraction from religious study and forbade young Sadio from playing, urging him to concentrate on the scriptures instead.

That chapter of his life changed abruptly when his father died from untreated stomach problems, leaving Mané just 11 years old and forced to grow up almost overnight.

Rather than being freed to chase his passion, Mané felt the weight of a new responsibility as the man of the household.

"I said to myself, 'Now I have to do my best to help my mother.' That's a hard thing to deal with when you are so young."

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That sense of duty became the engine behind everything that followed. At 15, he secretly left Bambali for Dakar to chase a football career, eventually earning a move to FC Metz in France, before his rise through European football continued steadily upward via Red Bull Salzburg, Southampton, and Liverpool.

Mané's career ultimately took him to some of Europe's biggest clubs, and in 2022 he finished runner-up in the Ballon d'Or rankings behind French forward Karim Benzema — the closest an African player had finished to the top of the award since George Weah won it outright in 1995.

As for his mother, Mané has long since delivered on the vow he made to himself as a grieving child.

Through the wealth and recognition football brought him, he built her a comfortable home in Bambali, funded a secondary school for the village's children at a cost of around £250,000, and financed construction of a village hospital at a personal cost of roughly £455,000 — the kind of facility that was unavailable when his own father needed it most.