Diouf: I just hate to lose games

Aug 16 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

El-Hadji Diouf has been one of the Premier League’s least favourite pantomime villains for six years, but the Black Cats’ new king of bling is not all he seems, as Stuart Rayner reports

ASK a football fan to describe El-Hadji Diouf’s character and it is fair to assume most of the words they come up with will be less than complimentary. For all his unquestioned abilities on the ball, the 27-year-old’s greatest skill is his ability to rub up opposition supporters the wrong way. Speak to him, though, and it underlines why you should not judge a book by its bling-encrusted cover.

“Special” is the euphemism Diouf uses about himself, but charity activist or newspaper mogul are not tags most would attach to him.

The Senegalese striker’s rapper-like dress sense has amused his new Sunderland team-mates no end but the man himself sees his outlandish attire as an expression of his personality. “I’m special, just like on the pitch,” he says. “I like the nice clothes, the taste in colour. We need that banter in the training room. My medallion is made of diamonds and has the names of my family – my mum, my wife and my daughter. Everything on me is diamond. It all goes in my locker. We have good lads and good security. I trust my team-mates – they have more money than me.”

Dean Whitehead’s description of Diouf’s tastes, and those of fellow summer signing Pascal Chimbonda, are rather less charitable than some of Diouf’s less heralded extra-curricular activities.

“He has some naughty gear,” he comments. “Chimbonda has been arriving in green some days. The clothes get hung up in the dressing room all the time. They’ve not been burned yet but maybe they should be. Green trainers, tracksuits – they could end up anywhere.”

That, metaphorically speaking, Diouf lives in a glass house does not deter him from throwing stones. “Pascal (Chimbonda) doesn’t compare to me,” he responds. “I am a fashion victim and Pascal is a victim.”

Like Roy Keane in his playing days, Diouf’s will to win has had a habit of spilling over. Only once in his entire career – 2004-05 – has Diouf managed more league goals than yellow cards in a season but his regular appearances in referee’s notebooks do not unduly concern him.

“Sometimes when you are on the pitch you react differently but all I care about is succeeding,” he says. “That’s all I want. I am a bad loser and want to play football. I don’t think I have ever been bad to a referee. In the whole of my career I have only ever had three red cards. I think I only had five yellow cards last season (it was actually 16) and that was because referees watched me a lot. Sometimes I have felt like the victim.”

The comparisons with Keane, who bought him from Bolton Wanderers for £2.5m, probably explain why Diouf already feels so at home at the Stadium of Light.

“If you see me outside the pitch I’m the same man as on the pitch,” he says. “He (Keane) used to be bad loser, we used to fight on the pitch when Manchester United played Liverpool. I see him on the training pitch every day and he is a very nice guy, very charismatic and always behind the players. What he says to me is play football, think about nothing else. I want to get better year after year. I want to help Sunderland.

“This club has big ambitions and a big manager who shares those ambitions. The lads have been happy to see me. I have been here two weeks and it’s as though I have been here for a year.”

Keane wants more of the same from Diouf. “I wouldn’t say Dioufy’s got a nasty streak,” he says.

“What I like from every player at my club is he doesn’t like losing. That’s a good trait to have.”

There is, though, another side to Diouf which might surprise most people. Like many African footballers, he is conscious his talent has brought him things many back home can only dream of and is looking to give a little back.

“The Dioufy Foundation is designed to help people in Africa,” he explains.

“My charity has a slogan: ‘Give The Kids A Chance’.

“It’s a schools project. Two weeks ago me and Akon (the rapper, pictured below), two Senegalese people, went to see it. The first thing I set up in Senegal was Eleven Holding, a company that looks after me and my interests. I’m opening a newspaper in a month, it will be called Eleven Star. It will be monthly, sports and everything.

“My charity is very big. Me and Akon do everything together, we grew up together. We are the two most famous people in Senegal right now. We do things together because we are lucky. We earn good money and like to help people back home. Some teams in Senegal don’t have a shirt, don’t have boots and we are helping that.”