Romelu Lukaku believes Marcus Rashford deserves ‘massive respect’ as he praised his former teammate for his campaign to feed vulnerable children during the holidays and end child food poverty.
Rashford has twice forced government U-turns on free meal vouchers in the holidays for children who receive free school meals during the term time.
A Labour notion to extend free school meal vouchers through to Easter next year was rejected by the parliament in October but Prime Minister Boris Johnson has since pledged to support the campaign with an extra £170m.
Rashford received an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list last month, but remains determined to push his message in the hope of completely eradicating child food poverty.
Inter striker Lukaku, who was Rashford’s strike partner for two years at Old Trafford, is aware of the incredible work his former teammate is doing and has lauded praise on the England international.
“What he did is a beautiful thing — it’s something he deserves massive respect from the whole population, throughout England because what he did was challenge the government to help them with free school meals in the holidays because he comes from that environment and when you come from that environment you are marked for life,” Lukaku told ESPN.
“I speak from my own experiences and it’s stuff you don’t want to see other kids to go through that stuff, what he did was a beautiful thing and he deserves massive respect wherever he goes.”
“I expected nothing less from him because he has that awareness of trying to do the right thing for everybody — both on the football side and in general life. He deserves massive respect.”
Lukaku is likely to feature against England in the Nations League in Leuven on Sunday.
But Rashford has had to withdraw from Gareth Southgate’s squad for their two remaining fixtures of the international break with injury.
The extent of Rashford’s injury is not yet known but Solskjaer admitted in his post-match interview after the victory over Everton that he looked in a ‘bad way’.
“I can’t say enough how hard these times are for everyone, not just footballers, and we want to see football with quality,” Solskjaer told BT Sport at full-time, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News.
“I pushed my club to really fight the kick-off time on this one to give us at least half-a-chance, but it was quashed.
“Hopefully the injuries are not too serious but they [Shaw and Rashford] looked in a bad way towards the end.”
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