Teenager Annabel Kiki Aims To Be Youngest Scorer At Amputee World Cup

16-year-old Annabel Kiki has successfully spearheaded the fundraising campaign to raise enough money to send an England team to the first-ever women’s Amputee World Cup.

Requiring a sum of $65,000 to fund the travel and accommodation for the team, Kiki and her team-mates mounted an ambitious campaign to raise money on a GoFundMe page utilising an online video which was played on cinema trailers throughout the country with the slogan “The Only Thing We’re Missing Is Your Support”.

In the past week, the players featured on the United Kingdom’s flagship morning news show, BBC Breakfast, which elicited unlikely support on social media in the shape of John Terry, the former captain of the England men’s team. Terry invited the girls to the Chelsea training ground at Cobham before making the squad his special guests at the evening’s women’s Champions League tie between Chelsea and Real Madrid.

The publicity generated by the BBC and Terry more than doubled the GoFundMe donations taking them to almost $80,000, way beyond the initial target. Kiki and her team-mates have now booked their flights to Colombia and will travel to compete at the World Cup.

Featuring 12 nations from four continents, the tournament will be contested between teams of seven playing 25 minutes each way. Starting in 2012, four World Cups have been contested between men. Two female players competed in the 2022 edition representing the United States and Uruguay but next month will see the first-ever women-specific tournament held in the Colombian city of Barranquilla.

“This has been the craziest week ever,” Kiki told me. “From thinking we hadn’t raised the funds needed and wouldn’t be going to Colombia, to then raising the funds and realising there’s actually huge support out there for us and we will indeed be headed to Colombia to try and bring this World Cup home!”

So what advice did Terry have for the women going to the World Cup. “He said to me, ‘I can give you some penalty taking advice,” revealed Kiki, “but it won’t be any good!’ He was such a funny guy and so genuinely supportive. He had a go on my crutches and was annoyingly amazing. He made it look so easy. Not only was he running on one leg with the crutches, he was doing keepy-ups with ease – something that took me and the girls ages to learn!”

As the donations continue to come in, Kiki told me every extra penny will aid the amputee team, which exist outside the English Football Association, going forward “The extra money will allow our program to continue after we return from the World Cup. The England Amputee Football Association (EAFA) are a charity who rely completely on donations, so this will give us a bit of breathing space for a few months – pitches can be booked etc.”

Kiki grew up playing soccer but three months before England hosted the UEFA Women’s Euro, the 13-year-old was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. She told me her memories of watching England win the tournament on home soil are lost admist the pain of her ongoing treatment.

“Looking back now it feels so surreal. I was literally dying, the chemotherapy was killing me, I developed sepsis, my leg was about to be amputated mid-treatment and I remember just watching some games and feeling that all hope was lost in my life.”

“By some miracle I pulled through and I was determined to make the most of this new life. I live by the motto: ‘It’s not what happened to me, it’s what I choose to become.’ Now I just throw myself into everything. I model and walk runway – fashion is a massive part of my life, I ski, I play football and I travel. Life can be good when you focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do.”

Kiki is now working with the Bone Cancer Research Trust to lead the ‘Ever Heard of Bone Cancer?’ campaign to raise awareness of a condition which is often misdiagnosed and most commonly affects children and young adults under 20 years of age.

“The doctors think it’s growing pains or a sporting injury simply because it’s so rare, they just – thankfully – don’t see it often enough for it to be a diagnosis that springs to mind if that makes sense? I have never been on any medication and I live a totally normal life now – aside from having one leg, and obviously aside from the horror year-and-a-half of chemotherapy I had to have!”

The effervescent Kiki – currently also studying for her GCSEs – even went on to recruit two members of the England squad. As part of a global campaign with Ottobock, a market leader in the field of prosthetics, Sam Ryder released ‘Mountain’, a song about persevering to overcome life’s obstacles. When Ryder first aired the song at the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, he insisted on performing alongside dancers with limb differences.

Kiki befriended fellow amputees Dima Aktaa – who lost her leg in the Syrian war – and Rebecca Legon – born with a underdeveloped femur – and encouraged them to try out for her team. Both will now accompany her to Colombia. After everything the squad have overcome to reach the World Cup, the heat and tropical humidity of Barranquilla hold no fears for Kiki and her team-mates as they hone the unique skills to train for the tournament.

Kiki told me “crutch running is so important as speed will win us the World Cup. I was right-footed before I lost my leg so my striking hasn’t changed at all. It’s the agility I have had to work on – how can I trick the player when I’m on crutches. I used the back heel a lost in our recent international match in Poland but I have some new tricks up my sleeve ready for Colombia.”