Outside the room, they were world famous football players winning applauses and cheers wherever they went. Inside, they were just two members of a game.

With blue tags on their faces, Manchester United stars Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Carrick reached out their hands smilingly to some Chinese middle school students, shunning some others with red or yellow tags now and then.

The game was called "sticker", which aimed to help people understand the stigma and discrimination of HIV-infected people.

Those who got a blue tags stuck on their faces were supposed to be healthy people to whom others could offer a handshake. But they wouldn't initiate handshakes to three girls with yellow tags. As for the unlucky boy Chen Zhengran with red tag, everybody would turn down his handshake request and walk away.

"I feel really sad when others dodged me nervously," said Chen, an eighth-grader from Shanghai.

"Fortunately it was just a game," he said, "If this happens in reality, I would be in despair or even hate the world."

Carrick, the England defensive midfielder, said he was very "uncomfortable" seeing the boy isolated. "We should give them help and support." Even if his acquaintances got infected, he would still treat them as usual.

Bulgarian forward Berbatov said, "young people are accounting for a growing number of new HIV infections...Educating young people about HIV prevention is essential."

Invited by its charity partner, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Manchester United was in its second anti-AIDS campaign in China.

"We wanted to help the Chinese children learn the right knowledge and skills to protect themselves against AIDS," said John Shiels, Chief Executive Officer of the Manchester United Foundation.

Phil Townsend, Director of the "red devils", presented a check of 100,000 pounds on behalf of the United for UNICEF to further fund its projects in China. The money will be used to buy a "skill for life in a box" kit for schools, which contains educational material, games and sporting equipment designed to provide essential HIV prevention information.

In 2007, Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand went to Guangzhou in south China to visit some children affected by the disease. Under the sponsorship of the football team, UNICEF collaborated with the China Ministry of Education and destributed such kits to 195 schools across seven province, benefiting about 560,000 school children.

However, it is still too early to be optimistic.

"We are at a crucial moment to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS," said Dr. Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF representative to China.

According to her, the number of new HIV infections is rising by 30 percent each year. However, currently only 41 percent of the young people between 15 and 24 have comprehensive knowledge of how HIV is transmitted and how to protect themselves.

Liang Hong, division director with the department of international trade and economic affairs under the Ministry of Commerce, noted that it was a very good mode to have famous football stars taking part in charity in China. "I hope the spirit of Manchester United could encourage Chinese youngsters to grow up healthily," she said.

While David Gill, Chief Executive of Manchester United, believed that the influence of football could boost the development of charity.

Hangzhou is the last stop of Manchester United's Asia tour, where it will play against Hangzhou Lvcheng, China's super league club on Sunday.

The Premier League champions beat Malaysian opponent twice on the first leg of their tour and outscored South Korea's FC Seoul 3-2 on Friday, but had to skip a trip to Indonesia after hotel blasts in its capital.

(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2009)