Father of 50 children

The Vice President of Suriname is 60 years old and still plays football

Suriname's vice president playing football after 60 years.

From the source

Despite reaching the age of 60, Vice-President of Suriname, Guerrero Rooney Brunswick, participated last Tuesday in a Concacaf League match for North and Central American and Caribbean clubs.

Rooney wore a T-shirt with the number 61 on it, in reference to the year he was born.

Ronnie is the son of a farmer who lived on subsistence in one of the poorest regions of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

He was the bodyguard of the country's ruler.

He earned the nickname Robin Hood, after being convicted of robbing a bank, where he distributed the money he stole to the poor.

Convicted drug smuggler in two European countries.

A father of at least 50 children.

As of last year, he became Vice President of Suriname.

He is the owner of a football team called Inter Moingutabwe, which competes in the first division among the professional ranks in Suriname.

He played for 54 minutes as a striker alongside his son Damien, before he was knocked out of the match.

By participating in that match, at the age of 60, Brunswick beat Japanese player Kazuyoshi Miura, who turned 54 and still plays for Yokohama FC.

He was born on March 3, 1961, making him six months older than the CONCACAF tournament itself.

Brunswick became a paratrooper for the Surinamese Army and was eventually assigned as a bodyguard to military dictator Desi Bouterse, who took control of the tiny South American country in 1980, after a coup against the then-incumbent government.

Ultimately, however, the two disagreed over what Brunswick said was Bouterse's violent treatment of political opponents, and a community of descendants of slaves called the Maroons, to which Brunswick belonged.

He eventually led a rebel army of 1,200 soldiers in the devastating six-year civil war in Suriname, from which the country is still recovering three decades later.

He was sentenced in absentia for drug trafficking and to eight years in prison in 1999 by the Dutch judicial authorities (the former colonial power), and he was also sentenced to 10 years in prison by the French judicial authorities, without implementing these sentences, because Suriname does not allow extradition its nationals to foreign authorities.

He was elected MP in 2005, finally allying with the former Minister of Justice of Suriname and the head of the main political opposition Chandrika Prasad Santoki, who was elected president by acclamation in July 2020 by Parliament for a five-year term, with Brunswick appointed as his deputy.

Brunswick did not risk traveling for the return leg in Honduras, due to his legal problems and fear of arrest.

At the age of 60, Brunswick is ahead of Japanese player Kazuyoshi Miura, who is 54 and still plays for Yokohama FC.

He was sentenced in absentia for drug trafficking and to eight years in prison in 1999 by the Dutch judicial authorities (the former colonial power), and he was also sentenced to 10 years in prison by the French judicial authorities, without these sentences being implemented, because Suriname does not allow to hand over its nationals to foreign authorities.

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