Diouf has another dig at ‘Mr Liverpool’ Steven Gerrard

Rob McCarthy

El Hadji Diouf has threatened to reignite his long-standing feud with “Mr Liverpool” Steven Gerrard.

Diouf and Gerrard have had a rivalry dating back many years, with the latter once seeking legal advice in 2015 after the former claimed he “disliked black people”.

Diouf has also accused Gerrard of “killing” the Merseyside club and being “jealous” of his talent, while he also stated in November last year that the Reds legend was “nothing at all”.

And the 36-year-old, who has now retired, has once again taken aim at his old Anfield team-mate, although in a slightly less abusive manner.

“I have no problem with him,” Diouf told the BBC. “He is a strong character and I am a strong character.

“‘Stevie G’ was a very good player. People like him in Liverpool but he never did anything for his country. I am Mr El Hadji Diouf, Mr Senegal but he is Mr Liverpool and Senegal is bigger than Liverpool and he has to know that.”

He added, of his ‘Mr Senegal’ claims: “We put Senegal on the world map. Before the [2002] World Cup nobody knew Senegal, but after the World Cup everybody wanted to know where Senegal was.

“What Maradona did for his country is what I did for Senegal. I was one of the biggest men at the 2002 World Cup.

“We were colonised by France. Most of the businesses are run by French people here and to beat them was a big thing for us.

“Before the game, they used to say, ‘The reserve team is going to play against the first team’ – because most of the players used to play in the French league.

“I used to be at Lens, Salif Diao [was at Sedan], Khalilou Fadiga [was at Auxerre], most of the players played in the French league but we used to say: ‘Be careful before you kill the lion.’”