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Otuoma: Odibets offers to pay medical bills for ex-AFC Leopards forward
The striker's family had asked members of the public to help raise funds to enable the footballer to seek urgent medication
Former AFC Leopards and Western Stima forward Ezekiel Otuoma will now seek Motor Neurone Disease treatment after online betting firm Odibet moved to offer payment of his medical bills.
Otuoma has been visiting local hospitals for treatment and his family had asked the members of the public to help them raise enough money to enable the footballer to seek urgent intervention.
Odibets, through their Odimtaani initiative, will provide air tickets worth Ksh300,000 as well as medical bills that are expected to cost around Ksh1.5 million in Germany.
Since Otuoma was diagnosed with MND disease in 2020, his career stalled, but he now has every reason to celebrate the intervention made by the gaming firm. Otuoma's wife will also be given Ksh200,000 to boost her business as she takes care of the family.
"We have visited Ezekiel [Otuoma] to bring a message of hope to him and support him by paying his medical bill," Aggrey Sayi, Odibets country marketing manager, told journalists when they visited Otuoma to offer financial help.
"This is something we didn’t see coming, we have been praying and asking God to come through for us, I can’t say much but I thank Odibets for all they have done for us," said Otuoma’s wife Rachael.
Recently, former Sofapaka striker Ronald Okoth made a call for Kenyan footballers to stick together and always help each other in situations like Otuoma's.
"One of our own, Otuoma, is in desperate need of our assistance; I can't even imagine what he is going through; the least we can do as current and former players is to offer him our financial, physical, and spiritual support," Okoth pleaded then.
This is the second time Odibets is coming on board to help a Kenyan footballer after Harambee Stars goalkeeper Patrick Matasi.
Matasi had been involved in an accident with his family as he was rushing to Nairobi from his rural Kakamega home in order to catch a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he was to link up with Saint George SC teammates.
