Maty Ryan Australian Bushfire Fund donation tops $55,000
Maty Ryan is to donate $55,000 to the Australian Bushfire Fund after a series of saves in the Premier League and a glut of goals in the A-League and W-League.
Ryan’s pledge to donate $500 for every save made in the Premier League this weekend brought much publicity to the cause.
But that isn’t where the Brighton number one’s generosity starts or ends. Last weekend, members of the Professional Footballers Australia Association paid $1,000 per goal scored in the Australian A-League and their female top flight, the W-League.
27 goals flew in which meant that Ryan – and his Albion and Socceroo teammate Aaron Mooy – were both handing over $27,000 to the Bushfire Fund.
The 56 saves made across the Premier League this weekend added a further $28,000 to the Maty Ryan Australian Bushfire contribution for a total of $55,000. At the current exchange rate, that equates to around £29,194.
Ryan’s performance in the 1-0 defeat away at Everton contributed $2500 after he made five saves at Goodison Park. Given how terrible the 10 outfield players on the pitch were in the first half, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they were deliberately playing poorly in order to give Ryan plenty to do to help swell the fund’s coffers.
Those five saves were the joint second most of the weekend. Aston Villa’s Orjan Nyland, Burnley’s Nick Pope and Tottenham Hotspur’s Paulo Gazzaniga also managed five with Kasper Schmeichel out in front on seven in Leicester City’s shock home defeat to Southampton.
Ryan is a popular figure at the Albion for being as nice a bloke as he is a good goalkeeper. On the pitch, he remains the first and only Brighton player to win a Premier League Player of the Month award so far after three clean sheets in three games in October 2018.
Off it, he’s a rare modern day football who seems to genuinely care about those fans who pay his wages. He speaks to supporters in the North Stand at the Amex after games and will often come out with “a bag of goodies” including old gloves and shirts to give to the youngsters in the crowd.
His wild celebrations of important goals have already become the stuff of legend. Seeing Ryan sprint the length of the pitch to join in with his teammates is a sight that will never get old, even if VAR means that we’re seeing it less often now. Another reason to ditch the system.
Ryan has said that his Premier League saves donation of $28,000 will be going to the Wires wildlife rescue emergency fund. They’re trying to save and protect as many native species of animals as possible from the devastating effects of the fires, including koalas and grey-headed flying-foxes (Phillip Schofield if he were an animal) which are both on the endangered list.
If you’d like to show your support for Brighton’s number one and his fundraising efforts by making a donation yourself, then Maty Ryan listed on Twitter some of the Australian Bushfire relief funds that are in desperate need of money.
They are:
Wires Wildlife Rescue
Wildlife Victoria
New South Wales Rural Fire Service
County Fire Authority Victoria
Australian Red Cross
Keep up the brilliant work, Maty. We’re proud of you.
