Cantona’s TV series on Football Rebels to air on Al Jazeera

Cantona football rebels

Eric Cantona’s back on the screen this time as a host of a 5 part documentary series which focuses on telling the stories of five football legends whose own social conscience and beliefs has caused them to try and use their power to change unfair regimes, start up opposition movements and to cause a fight for democracy in a bid to improve human rights.

The first episode of the interesting new series will feature well known do-gooder Didier Drogba who in his time has challenged President Gbabo to put a stop to the civil war in his homeland the Ivory Coast. Episode two features St Etienne forward Rachid Mekhloufi who played for Algerian Independence. Episode three shows Yugoslav star Predrag Pasic who created a multi ethnic soccer school in the war town city Sarajevo. Episode four will look at Chilean international Carlos Caszely who in 1973 was persecuted by General Pinochet’s regime for showing support of murdered present Salvador Allende. The final episode of the series highlights how the legendary Brazilian Socrates helped overthrow the dictactorship in the 1980’s by turning his club side Corinthians’ games into political meetings for democratic change.

When asked on the new TV show “Football Rebels”, Manchester United legend Cantona stated “Football is more than the opium of the people. It’s about good intentions, noble hearts… When your country’s at war, your friends are killing each other and children are given rifles rather than footballs, so what if the whole world admires you!”

Football Rebels will air on Al Jazeera on Monday the 11th March at 22.30 GMT, hopefully there will be a way to air this online or to watch it at a later date. If we manage to dig out the link we’ll let you know.

You can view the trailer for the show above, featuring Didier Drogba.

By Matt

Matt is the owner and chief-editor of the Footy Blog, one of the UK's leading football news blogs.