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 The Daily Mail, Britain's second biggest selling newspaper, said
on its website that just 14,000 pounds out of 1.7 million pounds
($2.4 million) donated to the Didier Drogba Foundation had been used
to benefit children in his homeland Ivory Coast.
Britain's Charity Commission, a state-backed watchdog, said it was
investigating the charity set up in Britain in 2009 by the former
Chelsea striker, citing "serious regulatory concerns".
Drogba, who now plays for Canadian Major League Soccer club Montreal
Impact, denied the allegations in a strongly worded statement in
which he said he would issue legal proceedings against the newspaper
for "incorrect and libellous" information.
He could not be reached for further comment.
"Despite their claims, there is no fraud, no corruption, no
mismanagement, no lies, no impropriety," Drogba said in a statement
on Twitter and Instagram where he has 1.1 million and 3 million
followers respectively.
 Drogba, 38, founded the charity in Ivory Coast in West Africa in
2007 and its British arm was launched two years later.
According to the World Bank, 46 percent of the 20 million population
of Ivory Coast live in poverty, and four out of every 10 children of
primary school age are not in education.
The Daily Mail said the charity had spent almost half a million
pounds since 2009 on fundraising parties attended by celebrities
including footballers Pele and David Beckham and Swiss tennis star
Roger Federer.
The newspaper also said the charity had more than one million pounds
in its accounts but had built only one of five healthcare clinics it
claimed to be investing in. The Charity Commission said it had
opened a case to assess concerns about the administration of the
charity, the role of trustees based abroad, and allegations that the
foundation had provided misleading information to donors and the
public.
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"Further, the charity has raised and accumulated significant sums of
money that have not yet been spent and further information is
required over the plans to spend those funds," chief operating
officer David Holdsworth said in a statement.
Drogba, who was voted by Chelsea fans as the club's greatest ever
player and has twice been named African Player of the Year, has also
been a United Nations goodwill ambassador since 2007.
He told the BBC from Montreal, Canada, that all charity projects so
far had been funded by his own sponsorship deals, rather than money
from British fundraisers.
"I'm responsible for this money; I'm not going to spend it just to
spend it," he said.
The Daily Mail was unavailable for further comment.
($1 = 0.7072 pounds)
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, editing by Tim Pearce and Belinda
Goldsmith; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the
charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news,
women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit
news.trust.org)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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