Thirty years ago, FourFourTwo sat down with a man at the very top of world football. George Weah had just been named the best player on the planet by FIFA — the first winner of the Ballon d'Or from outside Europe — and the interview he gave revealed far more than his ambitions on the pitch.

When Weah collected his prize, he immediately called his mentor Arsene Wenger onto the stage and handed the trophy to him. It was a gesture that told you everything about the man: a player whose generosity off the field matched his brilliance on it.

The one-man federation

At the time, Weah was doing something almost unthinkable for a footballer of his stature. He was personally funding the Liberia national team — the Lone Stars — out of his own pocket. Air fares for European-based teammates, playing kit, win bonuses: all of it came from Weah himself, without a single franc or dollar from the Liberian government.

"I've committed my personal funds because I want Liberia's global image, which has been badly dented by the civil war, to be repaired through football," he told FourFourTwo. His monthly phone bill alone — keeping in contact with family back in Monrovia during the conflict — ran to between $5,000 and $6,000. The total outlay on the Lone Stars, he admitted, had run "into tens of thousands of dollars."

His efforts paid off. Weah effectively financed Liberia's first-ever qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations, transforming a nation ravaged by civil war into a continental competitor.

From Tonnerre Yaounde to the San Siro

The journey to becoming the world's best player had been anything but straightforward. Monaco signed Weah from Cameroonian club Tonnerre Yaounde in 1988 for a mere £12,000. AC Milan then paid Paris Saint-Germain £6 million for his services — a fee that, even at the time of the interview, already looked like one of the great bargains in football history.

It was under Arsene Wenger at Monaco that Weah's game truly matured. "His coaching contributed to what I've become today," Weah said. "He treated me as if I was his own son."

The move to Milan required considerable legal manoeuvring. Club president Silvio Berlusconi deployed a team of lawyers all the way to the European Court in Strasbourg in an attempt to have Weah declared a French citizen, sidestepping Italy's quota of two non-EU players per club. AC Milan already had Zvonimir Boban and Dejan Savicevic on their books, and coach Fabio Capello needed a forward capable of filling the void left by Marco van Basten's retirement through injury. Roberto Baggio, signed from Juventus, completed an extraordinary attacking partnership.

"Playing alongside Baggio is very rewarding," Weah said. "He's an intelligent player with virtually no technical faults. When we play together, we have a good working relationship. I'm trying to learn new tricks from him as well."

The weight of war

Throughout his time at Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain, the Liberian Civil War raged at home. Weah described the psychological toll in stark terms. "I didn't know whether my parents were dead or alive, as it was impossible to call Liberia at the time," he said. "Europeans find it very difficult to appreciate what we Africans go through when we think about home. As far as they are concerned, we've been paid to do a job and we just have to do it. But if they were in my shoes, they would have been in a worse mental state than me."

'No, it's not my wish'

Even as FourFourTwo floated the idea of a future in politics — labelling him a potential president of Liberia — Weah was firm. "No, it's not my wish to become president of Liberia," he said at the time. History, of course, would prove otherwise: Weah was elected President of Liberia in 2017, more than two decades after those words were spoken.

In 1995, though, his focus was entirely on football — on filling Fabio Capello's tactical demands, on learning Italian with a twice-weekly tutor, and on carrying an entire nation's hopes on his shoulders. A river lad from Monrovia who once faced a future as a telephone technician had become, without question, the finest footballer in the world.