Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has donated his Champions League bonus to his childhood club in Germany to help them fund a new artificial pitch.
Gundogan spent a decade at Hessler 06 before moving to Bochum’s academy and then into the professional ranks.
Gundogan is still very closely connected to the club, because he spent large parts of his childhood here.The club played a key role in inspiring him into football.
And the club's withdrawal due to lack of artificial pitch hit the Man City star so hard that he had to intervene.
The Manchester City midfielder will put in the vast majority of £258,000 being paid by Hessler 06, using the entirety of the bonus he received from City after their run to the Uefa Champions final.
Hessler 06 club chairman Rainer Konietzka expressed his gratitude to Gundogan narrating that without his act of kindness the club would not have started the project .
After Hessler, Gundogan joined Bochum’s academy as a teenager, later signing for Nurnberg and then Borussia Dortmund in 2011.
He was Pep Guardiola’s first signing at City in 2016 but had to overcome a serious knee injury in his first season at the Etihad.
This year he finished as City’s top scorer in the Premier League, scoring 13 goals as he lifted his third league trophy with the club.