VIDEO. After his football career, Ferdinand Coly is a farmer

He was part of the first Senegalese team to qualify for the World Cup, in 2002. Today, Ferdinand Coly is far from the football pitch: “I am here in my field, a place where I find myself in peace, with a lot of tranquility”, he explains. In M’bour, Senegal, he takes care of his crops where he grows mangoes and citrus fruits. He even built an enclosure to raise poultry and pigs. For him, this comes above all from a passion for agriculture. “It’s a discovery for me, here, because I may have had an agricultural streak, but it’s above all the passion, the fact of liking being in this environment, which makes you make all these sacrifices“, does he think.

“I left the football fields to be in the agricultural fields”

“Here, you have to give physically, you have to give yourself in every sense of the word. And then the reward is what you do, you see. It is patience. It’s a life lesson”, he adds. He does not see so many differences between his two activities of footballer and farmer. “I think that agriculture leads us to a lot more humility, because sometimes we depend on the elements. You have to do with nature. If you stay under the shade of the mango tree to sleep, there is nothing. Me, I like the concrete, it’s my philosophy. Well, we do with the elements, we adapt to the environment.”

“I needed to take a step back. Then this environment suits me very well, because I left the football fields to be in the agricultural fields. So that’s a good transition, it’s a passion above all without any pretension. But above all it is a need for a balance of peace and tranquility”, explains Ferdinand Coly.