When Covid-19 struck early in 2020, Manchester United and England star Marcus Rashford wasn’t content to simply stay fit at home biding his time until football resumed. Instead, seeing a need in the wider community, he set about making a tangible difference to the lives of those less fortunate.

Rashford helped raise money and awareness for FareShare, an organisation that redistributes surplus food to charities, which is subsequently turned into meals for those in need.

The Manchester-born forward also successfully campaigned for the UK government to provide over one million school children access to free lunch vouchers. Importantly too, Rashford’s profile helped bring greater awareness for the need to support charity and community organisations.

The England star's commitment to charitable causes was duly recognised at The Best FIFA Football Awards™ 2020 ceremony, in which he was named the first FIFA Foundation Award recipient for his outstanding humanitarian work to combat child poverty. The FIFA Foundation will also donate USD $100,000 to support his inspiring social and charity work.

"The FIFA Foundation board wanted to recognise the efforts made by Marcus Rashford through his remarkable campaign and petition to get free meals for children during school holidays in the United Kingdom during 2020," said FIFA Foundation CEO Youri Djorkaeff. "He helped raise millions of pounds in donations and convinced the UK government to offer free school meals to low-income families. This is why it has been decided to make a charitable donation of USD 100,000 to acknowledge his outstanding efforts and humanitarian work to combat child food poverty."

“I’d just like to say thank you because I know people from other countries, they want to get involved and they want to learn and understand more about it,” Rashford said after receiving the award. “It will have a knock-on impact because things will start to happen in other countries as well. I have had messages from other players who play in different leagues and they want to do a similar thing for their country.”

Rashford’s passionate and tireless campaigning saw him awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in October.

“I wanted to make change and to give people a better chance at life. It is having a good impact and it is working at the end of the day. The kids are looking forward instead of behind, they have got their heads up instead of down, so thank you very much.”

As if Rashford’s Thursday was not impressive enough, he also managed to score twice in Manchester United’s 3-2 English Premier League win at Sheffield United.

Take a bow, Marcus.