England: We'll play for free

A new Team England Footballers' Charity has pledged a minimum of £1million over the next four years to good causes hand-picked by a seven-strong committee of household names such as John Terry, Gary Neville and Michael Owen.

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All 23 England squad members will forego their basic Football Association wages and have agreed to make personal appearances for charities such as the Bobby Moore Fund to combat bowel cancer.

In tournament years, all the players will attend a 500-seat gala dinner to boost the pot and may also hand over bonuses and other revenues earned on national service.

David Beckham's manager Terry Byrne, of 1966 Entertainment, who handle the England squad's commercial dealings, told Sportsmail: "I'm not going to say we're saving the world or that we should have haloes fitted but as a group the England players wanted to make a difference. They wanted to do something under their own name.

"Some people will look at this and say 'Hang on, what's £50,000 to someone who can earn that in a week?' but the players didn't have to do this. They chose to. They wanted to do some good."

The social importance of the gesture — conceived when Beckham was still out of the squad — could be as useful as the financial windfall. It comes at a time when Premiership wages are booming and some modern players are being accused of decadence and losing touch with fans.

While expressing fears that they would be pilloried for not giving enough, the players reached a unanimous decision to establish what will eventually be abbreviated to Team England FC, with four categories: children's charities, grass-roots football initiatives, the Bobby Moore fund and the PFA's charitable arm, which includes a new children's rehabilitation unit in Manchester.

An England regular who features in every game in the next four years can expect to contribute £50,000 to the pool, which Terry, Owen, Neville, Frank Lampard, Jamie Carragher, Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard will review each season before deciding how to distribute the cash.

The current match fees are £1,500 for a win, £1,000 per draw and £750 for a defeat. Byrne stresses that those figures are multiplied by 23 to cover the whole squad, around 10 times a year, and believes individuals may extend their contributions to cover money earned from the FA's commercial tie-ups.

Brian Barwick, the FA's chief executive, said: "I'm obviously very pleased that the whole squad has taken this initiative. It puts an extra kick into them appearing for their country."

On Thursday night a C4 documentary told how a doctor, Noreena Hertz, persuaded half of all Premiership players to donate a day's wages to a nurses' hardship fund.

Anonymously, the England team contributed their fees for the friendly against Spain in February to Hertz's account and have already started their own kitty with cash from the matches against Israel, Andorra, Brazil and Estonia.

Among the other beneficiaries will be the Association of Children's Hospices, Well Child, Trevor Brooking's grass-roots programme for five to 11-year-olds and 25 youth teams around the country, who will be invited to apply for funding via Team England's own website which will be launched later this year.

Terry said: "Every player in the England squad works in some way with local or national charities, but as a team we decided to use our role as England footballers to not only contribute money and our time but to also help raise awareness of particular issues. Every player to a man is looking forward to supporting our charity."

Stephanie Moore said: "Forty-five men and women die every day in the UK from bowel cancer — often needlessly, because if bowel cancer is detected early enough more than eight out of 10 cases can be successfully treated. I'm overjoyed that the England squad have chosen to support the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK and know Bobby would have been delighted."