Ole Gunnar Solskjaer testimonial will help fund UNICEF in Africa

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer arrived at Manchester United from Norwegian club Molde a virtual unknown in 1996 for £1.5 Mn. and went on to score 127 goals in 366 first-team appearances.

That summer Ferguson had also brought in Ronny Johnsen a better known but now forgotten Norwegian , Jordi Cruyff, Raimond van der Gouw and Karel Poborsky also joined the squad.

In his first season the "baby-faced assassin", shot to fame with a last-gasp winner over Bayern Munich in Barcelona in 1999 in the Champions League Final.

He famously netted four goals in 12 minutes as a substitute at Nottingham Forest in United's record 8-1 away win.

The testimonial match at Old Trafford today for the 35 year old UNICEF Norway Goodwill Ambassador Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will £2 Mn. from his Testimonial Match to UNICEF education projects across Africa - the receipts don't add up to that he will stick his hand in his pocket to make it up..

Money raised from the match, which takes place at Old Trafford Manchester on the 2nd August 2008 will help fund the building of ten schools in three of Africa’s poorest countries; Angola, Malawi and Mozambique, providing hundreds of school children with access to clean water and sanitation facilities, text books, writing materials and other school and sports essentials, as well as funding the training of local teachers.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s relationship with UNICEF developed as a result of Manchester United’s groundbreaking ‘United for UNICEF’ partnership which launched in 1999 and has so far helped over 1.5 million children worldwide. In 2001 he was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for his native Norway.


Earlier this year Solskjaer joined UNICEF on a visit to Angola - a country devastated by a civil war - where he witnessed at first hand the impact of conflict on children and education in the county. At present, an estimated 1.2 million primary school age children are out of school in Angola. In the poorest communities, up to 65% of children are excluded from education. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, 45 million children miss out on school.

Solskjaer added: “It is more important for me to be able to look back on my career and know that I have contributed with ten schools in Africa, than the goals I have scored on the football field.”

Solskjaer will remain at the world's finest football club coaching United’s reserve team under the watcful eye of Alex Ferguson.

Ryan Giggs is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.