The former Arsenal striker on how his heart problem inspired him to set up a foundation and why clubs should do more to monitor their players’ health

Nwankwo Kanu remembers the shouting, the confusion and the overriding sense of desperation. A woman had brought her gravely ill daughter to him, feeling she had nowhere else to turn, and now she was begging him to save the child’s life. Then the little girl collapsed. “We had to pick her up and run to the hospital,” Kanu says. “Thank God she didn’t die.”

It was the year 2000 and Kanu had just set up his eponymous heart foundation, having undergone a life-or-death scare himself in 1996. The girl’s mother had read the publicity and tracked the footballer to the Nigeria team hotel, where the squad were preparing for an Africa Cup of Nations game.

“The mum wanted to show me the girl for me to help,” Kanu says. “When she saw me at the hotel, she was shouting and suddenly the girl fainted. Later on at the hospital I promised the mum that the first kid we were going to operate on would be her daughter.”

The girl’s name was Eniton and she was among the first children that the Kanu Heart Foundation took from Nigeria to London for surgery at Great Ormond Street hospital.

“For a little girl of that age – not playing, no energy in her, not moving around; she doesn’t smile, the eyes are blue. They are really suffering, in a really bad situation, and you ask yourself: ‘If nobody comes in to help and they die …’

“But after all of the children had their operations, I went to visit them and they were full of smiles, jumping and playing with me, rolling around with me and when you looked at the mums, you saw the happiness. From that day, I said: ‘This is something that we have to do more and do more.’”

There is a beautiful update to Eniton’s story – she is about to graduate from Lagos State university, where Kanu has helped to pay her fees. But the foundation has saved the lives of many more children from underprivileged backgrounds in Africa and Kanu is proud to reveal the precise figure.

“We have saved 542,” he says. “But we keep doing it. This week four patients went to Sudan and we’re hearing that the operations were successful and another six are about to leave as well.

“We have partnered with hospitals, we do check-ups, we talk to the parents, we educate them and at the same time we take the kids to other countries for operations. The goal of the foundation is to build our own cardiac hospitals in Africa, starting in Nigeria. It would make it all much easier. As a footballer you win trophies and it’s good. But this is so much more.”

Kanu has always been a guy to stand out and he does not go unnoticed in Hertfordshire, where he lives with his wife and three children. He jokes that he intended to kick back and relax on his retirement as a player in 2012 – “I thought: ‘OK, it’s holiday time,’” he says – but he is too philanthropic, too driven to make a difference, for that.

The 42-year-old is an ambassador for the Nigeria Football Federation and he also works for Fifa as an ambassador. “I am called a legend and people see me as one but because of that I don’t think I should have to hide at home and only go on holidays, drink champagne and watch TV,” Kanu says. “I am somebody that wants to impact on to people’s lives.”

Kanu’s labour of love remains his foundation and with more time on his hands, he has been able to give more of himself to the raising of funds and awareness. His latest initiative is a charity match to be played at Barnet’s Hive stadium on Saturday 30 September between African and Premier League players. A host of big-name ex-professionals have signed up, including Jay Jay Okocha, Sol Campbell, Teddy Sheringham and Robert Pires.

Kanu was shaped by his tough upbringing in Imo state, where money was tight and barefoot street football the norm. He does not forget his roots and after he joined Ajax from Iwuanyanwu Nationale, he says his “first priority was to help those back home that didn’t have anything”.

*Nation