…and then West Ham United at 16. He soon became a popular player and was loaned out to AFC Bournemouth, where he scored 10 consecutive goals in 10 matches. In 2004, he moved to Tottenham Hotspur.
He stayed at Tottenham for four years before moving to Portsmouth. However, after just one year, he had returned to Tottenham, where he stayed until 2014, joining Toronto FC. He would then return to England in 2015 to play for Sunderland and then AFC Bournemouth again in 2017. He was then loaned out to the Scottish Rangers, where they won the Scottish Professional Football League in 2021. Jermain announced his retirement in March 2022, aged 39.
Jermain’s charitable nature came out in 2014 when he befriended Bradley Lowery, a terminally ill six-year-old football fan, and assisted with fundraising efforts for the Bradley Lowery Foundation. He often took Bradley out onto the pitch at the start of matches as a child mascot, and even after he died in 2017, Jermain has stayed in close contact with his family.
In 2013, he launched the Jermain Defoe Foundation to support the vulnerable, homeless and abused children in his family’s home of St Lucia. Since its launch, the foundation has expanded and now supports children in many more surrounding Caribbean Islands and in the UK. Since 2013, the foundation has helped with the building of a library in St Lucia following Hurricane Tomas, fundraising for the people of the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian and for Dominica after Hurricane Maria, funding two children’s home in St Lucia for those who have been abused, abandoned or neglected, as well as creating a football academy on St Lucia for vulnerable children.
The foundation also supports children and charities in the UK, including raising money for the treatment of neuroblastoma and other life-threatening illnesses, and promoting the fundraising efforts for children requiring specialist drugs and support. In 2018, he was awarded an OBE for services to the foundation.
