Liverpool flop’s pizza cravings noticed him flout regulation in gold Cadillac and supercars
El Hadji Diouf was no stranger to controversy during his career but his behaviour off the pitch also raised serious questions about the Liverpool flop
El Hadji Diouf’s career in England and with Rangers in Scotland was filled with wild moments and controversy as the former Senegalese star drove his many employers mad.
Diouf arrived in the Premier League when he joined Liverpool in a £10million deal in 2002 although his time at Anfield was nothing short of a nightmare. But he somehow carved out a career in England that saw him find regular homes in the top-flight, including with Bolton, Blackburn and Sunderland.
The forward lived lavishly but it appears for all the professionalism in the Premier League, Diouf ignored the memo about a clean diet, and seemingly the laws regarding parking his car. We just hope after turning 44 on Wednesday, Diouf isn’t up to his same tricks.
Back in October 2009, the then-Blackburn Rovers forward was caught returning to his outrageous gold Cadillac Escalade after going for a spot of lunch in Manchester, having left the £53k motor in a loading bay.
He managed to narrowly avoid a £70 fine on that occasion as the traffic warden’s hand-held computer wasn’t working. Diouf had been dining on a seafood pizza at the San Carlo restaurant, where he returned in December of that year to pick up four more for takeaway.
After ditching his £420k chrome Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren on double-yellow lines that time, he wasn’t so lucky. Despite protesting that he’d been “just 25 minutes”, Diouf was handed a parking ticket by a member of the public after it had been placed on his windscreen.
His misdemeanours date back all the way to 2005, when he left his black Lincoln Navigator in a disabled parking spot while he went shopping for the afternoon in Manchester.
The repeated tickets unsurprisingly didn’t deter him, as in January 2011 he parked his McLaren in a taxi rank outside the Radisson Hotel, again in Manchester.
He did, however, get stung the year before for driving without a valid UK licence, which gave wardens a six-month break from handing him tickets.
Diouf had a letter from the Senegalese Embassy which said he held an international licence for 12 months – but used it for seven years after a mix up with the paperwork. And the wardens had the last laugh in February 2012 as the McLaren supercar was repossessed after he failed to keep up with the payments.
Diouf, who was twice named the African Footballer of the Year, scored 24 goals in 70 appearances for his nation, but was banned for playing for them in 2011, after reacting angrily to claims that he had failed to attend a disciplinary hearing.
