In a Facebook live video, veteran Togolese footballer Emmanuel Adebayor has said that he won’t donate relief packages to his countrymen.

The veteran goalscorer made it clear that he won’t be coerced into making donations simply because others are doing the same.

Some other top African football stars have already donated relief materials and packages in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Samuel Eto’o has donated relief packages to his home nation of Cameroon, with items such as food, soaps, sanitisers and protective equipment handed out in the country’s economic capital of Douala. Didier Drogba, another African icon, joined Eto’o in roundly lambasting French professors for suggesting their continent should be used as a testing ground for a vaccine due to developing nations having little protection to begin with. The former international also donated the soon-to-be-completed Laurent Pokou hospital, built by his Drogba Foundation, to his home nation’s government as a facility to screen for the disease.

On the other hand, Adebayor who is a former Premier League striker fired back at those calling on him to donate money to his home country of Togo amid the COVID-19 crisis. The active football star said during the Facebook live video:

‘For those of you who say I don’t donate, let me be very clear, I don’t donate. It is very simple,’ ‘I do what I want and eat what I want. Later, there will be people who will criticise me for the fact that I did not make a donation in Lome (capital of Togo).’ ‘Some think that I was the one who introduced the virus in Lome. It is very unfortunate, but this country is like that.’ “I’m sorry that people compare me to Samuel Eto’o and Didier Drogba by asking me why I don’t have a foundation or why I don’t donate, as if I was the one who brought the coronavirus to Togo. “I am neither the one nor the other, I am me, Sheyi Emmanuel Adebayor and I will always do what I want. A word of advice for the guys regarding donations, I will not do that. Everything is clear and very simple. Thank you and good day.”

Adebayor was earning as much as £175,000 a week while at the Etihad Stadium and has amassed millions across the span of his professional career.

The country, at the time of writing, has 88 confirmed COVID-19 cases and six people have died from the virus.