Man Utd ace Rashford vows to continue fighting after receiving prestigious award

Marcus Rashford Man Utd

Marcus Rashford has vowed to find “long-term answers” to child food poverty in the UK, after receiving the Professional Footballers’ Association merit award for combating the problem.

Manchester United striker Rashford forced the UK government into a U-turn over its free school meals policy during lockdown, ensuring children in need would receive meals across the summer.

The England forward has since formed a child food poverty task force, linking up with some of the UK’s biggest supermarkets and food brands.

And on receiving the PFA’s special award, handed out for services to football, the 22-year-old insisted he is only just getting started on his off-field quest.

“What we’ve done so far, it’s only a short-term answer,” said Rashford.

“Me and my team behind me are just trying to find plans on how we can help these children for the rest of their childhood really; to find long-term answers to the problem.

“At the moment we don’t have the answers but we’ll do our best to try to find them, and to progress the situation that they are in at the moment the best we can.

“Obviously I was injured during lockdown, and at the beginning I was working towards getting back with the team, but then there were conversations saying there might not be games until September, and when I was sat at home I just needed something to work towards and a goal to achieve.

 

“And that was just something I spoke about with my brothers over the phone and rest of my family, and we just tried to find the best way to help people.

“It’s been a long journey, but I think the first phase was probably the hardest bit, which was learning and self-teaching who were the right people to get in contact with to help these children especially.

“We had the ideas but we didn’t know where to pitch them, or who to pitch them to, so that was probably the most difficult phase of everything really. That was right at the beginning of lockdown.

“This is obviously a huge honour, and for me I just hope it encourages and promotes other players to do things to help as much as they can. I’m very happy, and I’ll definitely continue to do my best to help people.”

 

Greenwood vows to learn lessons after England dismissal

Greenwood Man Utd TEAMtalk

Meanwhile, An apologetic Mason Greenwood insists he has learned a lesson after a breach of coronavirus regulations resulted in him being sent home from England duty.

The 18-year-old United striker and Manchester City’s Phil Foden, 20, were both removed from Gareth Southgate’s squad ahead of the Nations League match against Denmark.

That’s after allegations emerged in the Icelandic media that the pair had spent time with two girls during the trip to Reykjavik. Both players had made their senior debuts in a 1-0 win over the hosts on Saturday.

Southgate said it was a “very serious” breach of their bio-bubble in Copenhagen and the Football Association has launched a full investigation.

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