When Bukayo Saka collects the 2026 Socrates Award, he will receive recognition for work that began quietly in 2022 and has since reached families across four continents.
The Arsenal and England forward has won admirers for his pace, his goals and his composure under pressure, but this honour celebrates something different: a sustained effort to use his wealth and visibility to change the lives of people who have little of either.
The award is named after the Brazilian footballer and doctor Sócrates, and it recognises humanitarian work by footballers, so the choice of Saka reflects how seriously his charitable record has come to be taken.
The story starts with Nigeria. Both of Saka’s parents come from the country, and he takes pride in that heritage, which helps explain why he chose to direct his first major gift there. Since 2022 he has supported the children’s medical charity BigShoe, helping to fund 120 life-changing operations in Kano.
The children who benefited faced serious conditions. Most of them suffered from inguinal hernias, umbilical hernias or brain tumours, problems that families in Kano often cannot afford to treat. The surgeries took place at the Prime Specialist Hospital in Kano, and for each child the operation meant the chance to grow up healthy.
Saka chose his partner well. BigShoe began during the 2006 World Cup as a way to channel resources from players and fans to children with medical needs around the world.
Paul Pogba, Antonio Rüdiger, Philipp Lahm and Oleksandr Zinchenko have all joined its network, and Saka now stands alongside them as one of the footballers who has turned his earnings into direct medical help.
Saka did not stop at one country. When an earthquake struck Morocco, he provided 50 homes that now shelter 84 families and 89 children, giving survivors a stable place to rebuild their lives. When earthquakes devastated Turkey, he again worked with BigShoe, and the partnership funded accommodation for 26 families who had lost their homes.
His reach also extends across Africa. Saka has supported healthcare and medical screening programmes in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone, and he carried out that work alongside Rüdiger, a rival on the pitch who became a partner off it.
The Socrates Award itself has a short but proud history. It was first presented in 2022 at the Ballon d’Or gala, and Sadio Mané received it for funding a school and a hospital in his Senegalese hometown. Saka now joins that tradition, and his record shows how a modern footballer can measure his influence by more than trophies.
What sets his work apart is its range and its consistency. A single surgery, a family’s new home and a community screening programme all reflect the same decision: to put resources where they matter most, wherever the need appears. For the 120 children in Kano, the families in Morocco and Turkey, and the patients across East and West Africa, that decision has changed daily life in ways no match result ever could.
