Marseille (AFP)

His fine knowledge of football and footballers had helped bring Olympique de Marseille back to success: Pape Diouf was carried away by the coronavirus Tuesday, at the age of 68.

There was only one Pope in Marseille. The popular leader succumbed to the pandemic before he could be repatriated to France. He is also the first official victim of Covid-19 in Senegal.

The medical plane chartered by the French Embassy was ready to take off for Nice, where a place awaited him in a hospital, but complications of the state of health of Pape Diouf, placed on respiratory assistance, prevented the device to fly away, and the former OM leader died on Senegalese soil.

"Very sad", Jacques-Henri Eyraud, the current president of OM, praised the "exceptional journey" of a "boy who passed through Senegal before reaching 18 years in Marseille" and climbing there the ranks, he told AFP.

"A sign of great will", Diouf "arrived at a difficult position, where there are not many men from diverse backgrounds," continues Eyraud.

Diouf "managed to hold his rank and defend his club tooth and nail, and won the hearts of thousands of supporters", continues "JHE".

"I am the only black president of a club in Europe. This is a painful observation," regretted Pape Diouf in an interview with Jeune Afrique in 2008, but, he estimated, "like European society and , especially French, which excludes ethnic minorities ".

- "A great president" -

He was above all a wise leader. His great rival at the time, the number one Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas, with whom the verbal fights were sharpened, also paid him tribute.

"Pope was a great president," wrote + JMA on Twitter, "very successful, I had deep respect for him, I associate myself with the grief of all his family and all his friends."

He led the club from 2005 to 2009, patiently building the team that would finish champion of France in 2010.

He had been sidelined a year earlier for internal conflicts, but it was he who had launched the process, including recruiting the "winner" Didier Deschamps as coach.

"He was a great president, but these are pompous words, all that was above all a man, a real man, a good man," said Louis Acariès, adviser to the owner at the time, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who had chosen Pape Diouf to lead OM in 2005.

"He knew football, the media, agents and players," said the former boxing promoter.

Pape Diouf also knew and understood the supporters, who paid tribute to him by the thousands on social networks.

- The best of us "-

"Pope will remain forever in the hearts of Marseillais and one of the great craftsmen of the history of this club", wrote OM in a press release, announcing a tribute to come on its media.

Many players also addressed him a last hat trick.

"He will leave a unique memory in Marseille," wrote one of today's OM stars Florian Thauvin on Twitter, "very sad to hear of the disappearance of Pape Diouf".

"You were the best of us and a model for me," tweeted Mamadou Niang, scorer of the last OM champion in France. "Know that you will remain forever in my heart Pope. I love you."

Diouf knew how to communicate his passion for football, in which he spent a large part of his life. Arrived at 18 years in Marseilles, he was supposed to embark on a military career, like his father, but quickly branched off.

After Sciences Po ', he worked at La Poste then became a journalist at La Marseillaise, and soon followed OM.

His knowledge of the middle of the ball is refined, he becomes a players' agent, in particular of Didier Drogba, who ignites the Vélodrome in one season (2003-2004), and finally manager then president of this club he loved so much, and who remains inconsolable.

With the disappearance Thursday of Michel Hidalgo, sports director of the Tapie years, "it's starting to do a lot, saddens Eyraud. OM are in mourning.

© 2020 AFP