Chelsea star Michael Essien's dad lives in poverty

EXCLUSIVE: CHELSEA STAR ESSIEN'S DAD

Susie Boniface In Odoben, Ghana 27/01/2008



James Essien


He drives a 4x4 Porsche, drinks £400 - a - bottle champagne and wears the finest designer clothes.

As one of Chelsea's biggest stars, earning a whopping £90,000 a week, footballer Michael Essien can afford to buy just about anything.

It's a bit different for his elderly father James, though. You don't get to splash out much when you are living on 50p a day.

Home for James, 76, is a tumbledown mud shack with a tatty tin roof in a tiny village in Ghana.

On a pension of just £15 a month he can't even afford to buy firewood to cook his food.

James - known as J.K. - has seen millionaire Michael only once in the last 10 years following a family rift.

But far from being bitter - or wanting a chunk of his superstar son's fortune - he says: "I just want him to let me be a real dad to him.

"I want to go to see his matches - and maybe if he could buy me a second-hand fridge, life would be more comfortable for me.

"Michael has done so well, I am very proud of him. He has raised the Essien name up high. When I wake up the first thing I do is pray for him, that he will excel in all his matches."

J.K. lives alone in the village of Odoben, an hour's drive from the town of Ewutu Bwajiase in Ghana where Michael was born.

In pride of place on the living room wall is his most treasured possession - a poster of Michael playing for Ghana's national team, the Black Stars. J.K. watches every match he can on his tiny eight-year-old TV which picks up a crackly signal from a makeshift aerial.

The family rift began when Michael's mother, Aba, divorced J.K. because he refused to give up his three other wives.

After the split she claimed he had refused to provide for Michael and his sister, Dinah.

J.K. says: "She was my fourth wife and we were married for eight years. But when Michael was two she wanted me not to see the others, and I said no.

"I knew I had responsibilities to him as a father and did what I could. But at that time I was a tool collector for the council earning about £3 a month, and I just could not afford to.

"I had to pay for my other wives and children too. It is right in the sense I did not pay as much as I should have, but I tried my best."

But he adds: "I saw Michael whenever I could, I got him a scholarship to a good school, and I took him to his try-outs for his first under-12s team."

J.K. realised his son had a special talent for the game before he took his first steps. He says: "I was a footballer too when I was young and played for local teams, but had to give it up because at that time there was no profit in it.

"And before Michael could walk he was playing with a ball. He would roll it around with his hand, he would go to bed with a football. Soon he was playing it all the time and I would have kick about with him.

"He was a very good boy, calm and humble. He never insulted anyone or was rude, he was happy and outgoing. All he was interested in was football. The few times he did misbehave I would say, 'If you don't calm down, you're not to play football today'. He would stop right away and do whatever I wanted, he was so desperate to play."

One day J.K. heard there were trials for an under-12s team in the capital, Accra. He spent a precious £6 on a return trip for him and his son, who made it through the final stages to win a place at a soccer academy where he stayed for a year.

Then he started high school on a paid-for scholarship granted after J.K., on a trip to see the headteacher about a place for his son, was in a car accident and laid off work for a year.

Michael graduated at 14, the school-leaving age in Ghana, and was immediately signed-up to the under-17s squad of local side Liberty Professionals. In 1999, aged 16, he was spotted by talent scouts playing in the youth version of the World Cup and signed up to French team SC Bastia.

J.K. says: "When he was with Liberty he lived in Accra and was training a lot, but he rang me regularly and came to visit in the school holidays.

"When he went to France he stayed in touch, and everything was good between us. He sent home money to help me through his mother.

"She would ring me and say she had some money, and I had to travel to her to get it. I would spend maybe £3 getting there and then she would give me £25 or sometimes £10.

"Sometimes if I had not been for six months or so she would give me £50. It was not really enough to help me. But I never complained to her or to Michael because it was not my place.

"I was a beggar, and had to be grateful. If things were tough and I was struggling to put food on the table I had to ring his mother and ask for help."

But as Michael's star rose the family rift escalated.

His sister Betty, 27, says: "Michael's mother wanted him to pay for her and her children.

"Michael tried to help his brothers and sisters a few years ago and gave us all £50 each, but it was never repeated.

"A few months ago my father was so upset he mixed a poison to drink so he could kill himself.

"It was only because a family friend turned up before he had drunk too much that he was saved. Michael has no idea how much we are suffering."

In 2005 Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich paid a record £24million to sign Michael, whose earnings shot up to £30,000 a week.

But J.K. says all payments to him stopped apart from the delivery, two years ago, of a £500 third-hand Mitsubishi Galant, which J.K. has been too poor to fill with petrol for the past 18 months.

Meanwhile, Michael had fallen in love with a Ghanaian-born woman called Dela, whom he met in France. He introduced her to his mother - but not his father.

As is traditional, the couple had a formal engagement agreed by both families, allowing them to live together.

Dela moved with him to London but the couple soon fell out. Last week Michael arrived back in Ghana to play for his country in the Africa Cup Of Nations, the equivalent of the European Championships.

J.K. scraped together the money to visit his ex-wife, and asked her to arrange a visit with Michael.

He says she refused, and he was turned away from the door.

He says: "It was the saddest day of my life. There is no way to describe it. Michael's mother lives in a lovely house with lots of luxuries and I have nothing - most importantly I do not even have my son.

"People come to see me here and laugh at me and say, 'Oh, you're Michael Essien's father, but you live like this'.

"They ridicule me, but I am still proud of him.

"I would like to be able to go to a match and see him play live. But the tickets are about £30, so I don't think I will manage it.

"But I hope in my heart the day will soon come when my son comes back to me - and corrects all the wrongs that have been done."

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/2008/01/27/my-michael-s-on-90k-a-week-i-live-in-a-mud-hut-earn-50p-a-day-98487-20299416/