Iddrisu Baba says the desire to help his family amid difficult circumstances growing up fuelled his rise in professional football.

Speaking exclusively in our latest English episode of Play Red which you can listen to here, the midfielder revealed the obstacles he overcame in Ghana in order to help his mother and sister.

“I grew up in a place where football wasn’t to be taken as anything serious, but it started from my infancy and I took it from there - to a point where my mother wasn’t supportive of it,” he told Play Red. “Now it’s okay and she’s very happy with the kind of feedback she’s getting as a mother.

“My mother wasn’t into football because my father passed away, so sometimes the decisions of my mother were very difficult to change because I didn’t want to be a stubborn child. I just paid attention to her a little bit and to myself as well based on what I wanted. I've never seen my father play and he also never saw me develop because he passed away before I went 100% into football. He never had the chance to see me make it."

Surpassing over half a century of appearances for RCD Mallorca’s senior side earlier this campaign having progressed through our youth ranks, Baba values the impact family has had on his life.

“My mum has been an inspiration based on the stress she goes through on a normal day just to provide for us,” he continued.  “That gave me inspiration, I couldn’t just let her do all this, someone has to do something for the family, so most of the inspiration I took from my mother because I witnessed the kind of stress, ups and downs she was going through. It was very difficult so I decided to push myself to a certain limit so I could also do something for the family and here we are.”