The Ball relies on your help. Please consider donating via Paypal.

Children with an Alive & Kicking ball

Crystal Balls

Written here on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 by

Dov Weintraub, diamond cutter extraordinaire, simply has to sign The Ball and have his picture taken with it. He’s completely mad about football. He’s got tickets to the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup.

Dov Weintraub watches as his son signs The Ball
Dov Weintraub watches as his son signs The Ball

Here in Windhoek, Dov runs Almod Diamonds of Namibia and invites us over to look at a special diamond that they’ve been cutting. “Have you ever seen a diamond that looks like a football?” he asks us. “No, but we’d like to,” Christian replies.

Two balls, one pricy, one priceless
Two balls, one pricy, one priceless

Dov shows us a diamond weighing six carats that he reckons looks like a football. We pass him a football that we reckon is a peerless gem.

The Ball looks flawless even under scrutiny
The Ball looks flawless even under scrutiny

Every diamond has a value attached to it — and usually an eye-wateringly high one. We’ve been offered money for The Ball countless times en route. But even if we were offered an obscene amount of money for it we’d have to refuse. The Ball is not for sale. It is priceless.

No comments yet

Be the first to leave one!

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

The 2010 Route

The 2010 route

The Ball 2010 left Battersea Park on 24th Jan 2010 headed to the Opening Ceremony in Johannesburg for the 11th June 2010.

Donate a ball!

Donate a ball!

Pass the ball on! All footballs donated via Alive & Kicking's website before the 2010 World Cup went to Special Olympics programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. But you can still donate a ball to a good cause...

Donate now!

Most recent posts

Most recent comments

  • jacob mwinula-captain of team said:

    hello our friend. It is too late but we appriaciate your thanks for us. This...

  • Wario Donne said:

    it was a great moment!great fun.

  • Joyce Kwelepeta said:

    malawian communities need awareness on specail olympics. There are many people with...

  • Karim said:

    Thank you for post and Wydad is the best

  • Giter said:

    Anyone knows how Grenland is doing?

The Ball 2006

The 2006 Route

The Ball 2006 (Teamgeist) travelled from Battersea Park, London and headed to the Opening Ceremony in Munich, Germany.

The Ball 2002

The 2002 Route

The Ball 2002 (Fevernova) was carried 7000 miles across Europe and Asia to the World Cup finals in Korea & Japan.