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A few years ago, Emmanuel Adebayor was the most popular personality in Togo after the country’s late president Eyasigbe Eyadema. The 31-year-old, 6 ft3 striker was a role model for youths in the tiny West African country, mostly those aspiring to play professional football.
He gradually turned a villain following his recurrent spurning of the national team, which he said was unwilling to meet safety and financial conditions of the Sparrow Hawks, the nickname for the national team.
Many in the country felt it was time to turn the page of the former Monaco, Arsenal and Manchester City player, who remains the biggest football name to come from Togo. However, the streets still loved and still longed for him.
Hundreds of motorbikes accompanied him from the airport to his residence each time he was in town. Adebayor was still treated like a prince until recently when his own family began to despise him publicly, to the extent that the player’s fans began to cringe at the image his family was exposing of him.
His mother, sister and brothers talk to the press easily, and used every opportunity to accuse their rich son and sibling of being stingy, wicked, heartless and uncaring.
Adebayor has at times without number attempted to impose what he called the “real truth”, by granting interviews to local radio stations and newspaper. However, the “bad son, bad boy image” seems to have settled in the minds of many Togolese.
On Tuesday, the striker resorted to Facebook to air his side of the story - a heart-rending tale - of his family’s acts of ingratitude.
At age 17, he said he built a house for his family to keep them safe and publicly (on stage) thanked his mother for all her support when he won the 2008 Africa Player of the Year.
He also claimed that he had given his mother huge amounts of money uncountable times for her businesses and other needs. However, her version has always been that her son enjoys his wealth alone.
In 2012, she conveyed to the press to a local market in Lome, Togo’s capital, where she hurriedly, according to eyewitnesses, set up sachets of cold water to sell to passersby, in a bid to show that she is an impoverished mother of a rich and professional footballer.
Adebayor, in his message, said he bought a $1.2 million 15-room house in Accra, Ghana and sent his sister Yabo and brother Daniel to live in there. Upon his return months later, the sister had chased his brother out of the house and rented out the whole facility without informing the footballer.
“When I called her (Yabo) and asked for explanation, she took about 30 minutes to insult me over the phone. I called my mother to explain the situation and she did the same as my sister. This same sister says I am ungrateful. Ask her about the car she is driving or anything she is selling today?” Adebayor wrote.
He has another brother in Germany whom Adebayor says has not been ungrateful as well.
“My brother Kola Adebayor, has now been in Germany for 25 years. He travels back home about four times, at my expense. I fully cover the cost of his children's education. When I was in Monaco, he came to me and asked for money to start a business. Only God knows how much I gave him. Where is that business today?
“When our brother Peter passed away, I sent Kola a great amount of money so he could fly back home. He never showed up at the burial. And today that same brother (Kola) is telling people that I am involved in Peter's death. How? He is the same brother who went and told inaccurate stories about our family to The Sun in order to take some money. They also sent a letter to my club when I was in Madrid so I could get fired,” Adebayor said.
He said he wanted to help his other brother, Rotimi, who was aspiring to play football, but, read what Adebayor said happened:
“When I was in Monaco I thought it would be good to have a family of footballers. So I made sure my brother Rotimi gets into a football academy in France. Within a few months; out of 27 players, he stole 21 phones.”
Despite this, Adebayor said he tried to bury the hatchet and reunite the family for the sake of peace but he met the most peppery: “I organised a meeting in 2005 to solve our family issues. When I asked them about their opinion, they said I should build each family member a house and give each of them a monthly wage.”
He concluded by saying: “Today I am still alive and they have already shared all my goods. What if I die?”
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