As Germany and Argentina are playing the biggest game on the footballing stage, we can reveal the real winner of the World Cup...
Brought up in poverty and later facing bankruptcy, Heine Allemagne now looks set to become a millionaire, thanks to his magic disappearing free kick spray. The foam – which keeps the defenders’ wall 10 yards away and vanishes after 60 seconds – is expected to be used across the globe and is already being considered by Premier League bosses. Thrilled Heine got to be at the opening match in Sao Paulo to see it in action at the highest level for the first time.
He said the spray being used at the competition was a “magical moment” and added: “I’d dedicated 14 years of my life to this idea.
"After the referee brought it out the first time I started receiving text messages from my family and friends.
“It was the first time I got emotional, my eyes welled up. I remember thinking, ‘I’m not crazy. It was all worth it’.”
Brazilian Heine, 43, grew up so poor he missed out on school so he could sell ice lollies on the streets to help his family.
One of five children, he lived in a cramped, three-roomed shack on a dirt road in Ituiutaba, a remote town in the south eastern state of Minas Gerais.
Heine dreamed of becoming a footballer but he struggled to make ends meet and instead had to work five menial jobs at once to avoid going bankrupt. But one day – 14 years ago – he was visiting his parents’ home, where a match was playing in the background on an old television, and he had a eureka moment.
Heine had never invented anything before but a week after he overheard a commentator say ‘will anyone ever find a way of keeping the wall in place?’ during a match, he started working on the vanishing foam – a mixture of vegetable oils and gases butane and propane.
Heine found a small local cosmetics factory which helped him come up with a formula, then he immediately filed for a patent for his new invention.
Determined, he then convinced the Brazilian Football Federation to try it out and it was used in the minor Belo Horizonte Cup in 2000. By 2012 the invention had been tested in 18,000 professional games.
Heine, who is in Rio de Janeiro for today’s World Cup final, now wants to see his creation become as vital a part of football as red cards and corner flags.
And the inventor is hoping to win big when the magic spray is finally approved worldwide, acknowledging he is likely to make a massive amount of money.
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