AFC Bournemouth Chairman Jeff Mostyn has addressed a delegation at the United Nations General Assembly.
He travelled to New York to speak in his role as global ambassador for the UN-backed organisation Football for Peace and AFC Bournemouth.
Jeff revealed the news to more than 100 business people at the Cherries’ Directors’ Dinner held at the club’s Vitality Stadium.
Football for Peace, founded in 2013 and numbering the Duke of Cambridge among its patrons, attempts to bring peace, tranquillity and some stability to war-torn countries through the international language of football.
Jeff said: “It is another huge step in the incredible story of our football club.
“It was an absolute honour, not only for me, but wherever I go the one thing that stands out in my presentations is this football club. I spoke about the incredible work we do at the football club and the synergy between trying to take baby steps in our community that can suddenly reach out globally.
“With the backing of the UN, Football for Peace is making a difference. What we are also doing is reaching out to inner cities and inner towns where they suffer from depravation, getting youngsters off the streets and they are becoming ambassadors themselves.
“It was incredible to speak in front of the General Assembly about the work that our Community Sports Trust does in teaching more than 4,000 children a week in the conurbation about the pitfalls of anti-social behaviour, of drug and alcohol abuse, internet grooming, knife crime and respect.
“When we talk about respect we don’t just talk about respect for parents and teachers, but, most importantly, also respect for their peers because in multi-cultural, multi-religious classrooms that is where the problems grow later on.”
Keynote speaker at the Directors’ Dinner was Dr Kevin Dutton, a research psychologist at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford who spoke entertainingly on the subject of psychopaths.
In a Q&A session hosted by AFC Bournemouth Player Liaison Officer Jimmy Glass, Dr Dutton, who has studied psychopaths in high security institutions, said not all psychopaths were necessarily violent criminals.
He demonstrated that special forces soldiers, elite sportspeople and top business people all exhibited psychopathic tendencies, but were able to channel them in the right way.
Dr Dutton, who has co-authored two books with ex-SAS hero Andy McNab, said that psychopaths are fearless, confident, charismatic ruthless and focused – qualities tailor-made for success in 21st century society.
The evening was sponsored by specialist money transfer firm Global Reach, a new Official Partner of AFC Business from this season.