Sadio Mané Puts $20.4m Into His Senegal Hometown

Sadio Mané has taken one of the biggest steps of his post-football success away from the pitch, committing about $20.4 million to an agro-industrial project designed to process mangoes and create jobs in his hometown of Bambali, Senegal.

The project, known as SM10 Agro, was unveiled on September 19 in Bambali in Senegal’s southern Sédhiou Region. It will include a mango-processing plant capable of handling about 8,500 tonnes of fruit annually.

The factory is expected to produce mango pulp, dried fruit and mango butter, while the wider project includes a 500-hectare plantation of Kent mangoes.

The significance goes beyond the involvement of a famous footballer. Agriculture can create employment without creating prosperity when farmers are forced to sell raw produce without access to storage, processing and industrial markets.

Processing changes that equation. Instead of mangoes leaving farming communities as raw produce, the project is designed to create additional economic activity around processing, packaging and agricultural supply chains.

The investment is also taking place in an area where inadequate processing infrastructure has contributed to significant post-harvest losses.

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For Mané, whose career took him from Bambali to the biggest stages in world football, the project represents another kind of return home.

The footballer who built his reputation by scoring goals is now attempting to build an industrial chain capable of creating jobs long after a football career ends. That may ultimately prove more consequential to Bambali than another trophy.