[lfc-news] Bolton consider cut-price Diouf - Guardian

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The Guardian, 1 Dec 2004
Bolton consider cut-price Diouf
By Dominic Fifield

Bolton Wanderers will attempt to negotiate a cut-price deal with Liverpool
to complete the transfer of El Hadji Diouf during next month's transfer
window despite the Senegal striker being given a three-match ban for
spitting at an opponent.

The improper conduct charge, admitted by the 23-year-old, was laid by the
Football Association yesterday after television cameras caught him spitting
in the Portsmouth captain Arjan de Zeeuw's face during Saturday's 1-0
defeat at the Reebok Stadium.

But Bolton officials have been privately impressed by Diouf's reaction to
the misdemeanour and by his displays since joining on loan in August.
Gérard Houllier paid Lens £10m for the striker just before the 2002 World
Cup - a tournament in which he excelled - on a five-year contract worth
£30,000 a week but he scored only six goals in 80 appearances. Liverpool
have still to complete the payment of that transfer fee and are paying a
proportion of his wages over the course of his season-long loan at the Reebok.

Bolton may attempt to extend that wage agreement over the remaining years
of Diouf's contract and hope a nominal fee will secure his signature.

Diouf will be banned from the Premiership games with Everton, Norwich and
Manchester City. The fact that he has admitted the charge means the case
will not be referred to a disciplinary commission.

He has also issued a public apology to De Zeeuw, accepted the maximum
permitted fine of two weeks' wages imposed by Bolton and promised to clean
up his act. He has been equally apologetic to his team-mates.

Bolton will refer him to an in-house sports psychologist, aware that
spitting has been a recurrent problem. Police on Teesside are investigating
claims that he spat a drink at an 11-year-old fan during Bolton's visit to
Middlesbrough on November 7 and he was fined for spitting at a Celtic fan
during a Uefa Cup tie in Glasgow in 2002.

"At this moment there is no possibility that Diouf will return," said
Liverpool's manager Rafael Benítez. "We have very good strikers and I am
thinking only of my own strikers. He is playing at Bolton now and is not my
player."


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