El Hadji Diouf is probably only starting to realise that he is now playing football in a very different country.
The player, a pariah in England, is now playing for a club that has the tribal protection of a section of the media and this is something that he has not experienced before.
People in senior position sin sports journalism in Scotland will spin, minimise and mitigate for him.
This gifted footballer is nothing if not shrewd and calculating and he will learn quickly.
In 2003 when charged with spitting on a supporter at Celtic park during a UEFA cup match he deployed at his trial the race card with some aplomb. In Glasgow Sheriff court Diouf added that in Senegalese culture it was “degrading, insulting and patronising” to be touched in such a way on the back of the head because in past years slave traders had done that.
I remember at the time that people were unsettled with this piece of information. Had the Celtic fan unwittingly made some racist insult when he had patted the Senegalese internationalist on the head as he found himself off the field of play and very close to the crowd?
At the time I was working with a colleague who had just returned from Senegal after a year with an Irish NGO. A fluent French speaker she had quickly naturalised herself with the people she worked with in Dakar. I asked her about what the Liverpool player had said at his trial and she asked her friends in the Senegalese capital. The pat on head harking back to the slave trade was news to them.
The “slave trade” excuse in his trial convinced me then that Diouf was a highly intelligent man and fully aware of the multi cultural sensitivities of modern Britain and how to turn them to his advantage.
This was not the 1970s and thankfully British soccer had moved on a long way from the appalling treatment of black players in England and the shameful abuse heaped on Mark Walters by Celtic supporters in the 1980s.
Since the 2003 spitting incident at Celtic park Diouf has continued to disgrace himself at regular intervals.
Dr.King famously said that:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Therefore when someone shows that they have a vile character then the colour of their skin is irrelevant.
Diouf’s loan deal to Rangers show that “Unsurpassed Dignity” will not be allowed to get in the way of Rangers retaining the SPL title.
Undoubtedly Diouf will continue to attract the opprobrium of opposition fans throughout Scotland just because of what he has done as a man.
However it might be, perhaps, a little tempting for the pro Rangers section of the Scottish sports desks to characterise this as abuse because of WHAT he is.
If an impeccably observed silence at Ibrox last month can be described, in a major daily title, as broken by coordinated coughing then the booing of Diouf can easily be styled as racism.
If Diouf himself does decide to deploy the race card again in Scotland then he will find that he has allies in the media and that will be an entirely new experience for him.
The pariah player now plays for the club with pariah fans. They seem to be getting along famously already.
Quelle surprise.
