Why Pape Diouf was the best speaker in the history of L1

This is a video that we watch on loop since Tuesday evening with a teardrop in the corners of the eyes. Pape Diouf on the set of the Evening Team, and the presenter who impatiently asks him for the children on Christmas Eve that he gives us an African proverb from his secret cellar. A slightly angry look from the Senegalese giant, who finally lets go with a purring smile of satisfaction: "An elephant does not swallow another elephant". Our Pope among us among hundreds. The man of culture, the prince of verbal jousting, the king of word handlers, the most brilliant president that L1 has known intellectually in the 21st century, without insulting others.

Pope Diouf's favorite proverb: "An elephant does not swallow another elephant." 😂😂🐘 #EDS pic.twitter.com/CMVme1Y1zE

Duels for posterity with Aulas

"In a paper for Libé, I had nicknamed him" the Pope of the imperfect subjunctive ", fondly remembers Jean-Louis Pacull, the companion always, since the first years of scrap together in the local media. He hadn't liked too much, but it was not pedantry on his part, it was his pride, his way of mastering the French language and paying him homage. Another for the road? This memorable spike addressed to Jean-Michel Aulas, the president who knew how to make the most of Pope Diouf's oratorical talent during his presidency of the Olympics, between 2005 and 2009.

"Jean-Michel Aulas' whining at best makes me smile, at worst snarls me with contempt. I prefer to respond to someone serious rather than someone who struggles without a compass or a sense of direction. We would be an elephant with clay legs if we let ourselves be destabilized by the first puppet came ”.

A spat that must date from 2006 with a wet finger, when Ribéry wanted to force his departure from OM for OL. Two opposing masteries of French, but only one result at the time. Ribéry never saw the color of the A7 interchange for Gerland. The science of the verb of Diouf is all the more remarkable since the son of a Senegalese soldier speaks delicious French without ever having followed the course of the African elites; "Pope was a true autodidact," says Pascal Boniface, who co-wrote a book of interviews before the former players' agent. He took courses at Sciences-Po Aix, but it was in parallel with odd jobs nearby. On the other hand, he was a very good reader, taking care not to remain locked in the middle of football. His intellectual agility has always impressed colleagues from the academic world to whom I was able to present him. And obviously there is this exceptional manner of speaking, this phrasing which belongs only to him ”.

"My dear Robert, I think we are going to come to physical extremes"

In his biography published a few years ago, "The President", as we knew him in Dakar long after his departure from OM, does not only settle a few accounts with Labrune and his clique. He also dwells on his almost technical approach to the right formula, recalling with adolescent pride two regional first prizes for his articles in La Marseillaise in the early 80s.

“I don't believe in innate writing talent. There must be geniuses in the matter, in the same way as there was Pelé in football or Berlioz in music, but I have always seen that talent is worked. I learned very early on that to write well, you had to read a lot. I have read and reread the most highly rated journalists in France, I have also read the great classics. As Jean d'Ormesson said: "We write well only because we read others". Some of my colleagues at the time continue to remind me of one of my apostrophes, in the OM locker room, towards Robert Buigues, then the team's midfielder. "My dear Robert, I think we're going to come to physical extremes." At the time, I was guided by the ease of writing and writing. I called him a "butcher on duty". "

This is demonstrated, in passing, that Pape Diouf did not spin the metaphor of the elephant. His reading list would spin complexes to a socio teacher at the end of his career: "David Easton, Stanley Hoffman, Robert Dahl, Maurice Duverger, I prepared myself to become in my turn what Raymond Aron called" a committed spectator ". "He was a lover of the literary thing, and of philosophy, who cherished his books as much as his players, sums up Christophe Bouchet, who got him started in OM before falling out at the end . When you entered your house, the library always had its place of choice. It was the centerpiece of the house. He drew much of his strength from this ability to read, observe, study. ”

Jean-Louis Pacull confirms: “Pope was a very cultivated man, a humanist. We must not forget that it was raised to the mirrors of football, a magazine close to the PC, which offered real analyzes of football contextualized in its time. Even when he was an agent, he tried to find bridges between the sporting values ​​and the human qualities of a player. He preferred to deal with a player who is intellectually rich and less good at football than the opposite. ”

His first client, former goalkeeper Joseph-Antoine Bell, was himself recognized as a "head" in the community. Marcel Desailly, the one who took Diouf into another dimension with his transfer to AC Milan in 1994, is not a sleeve with ideas either. "Pope is undoubtedly the only agent capable of quoting great authors in full discussion with a club president," explains the world champion 98. He does not do that to impress the gallery. Just because he likes books, ideas and the men who defend them. ” A form of humility still urged him to avoid quoting his bedside book: The Court Man , a book by the Spanish Jesuit Balthazar Gratian. [An angel walks into the room while Ben Arfa is waiting to sign his contract].

Immense sadness. Pope was 32 years ago in the daily Le Sport a generous benevolent brother, out of the ordinary.
I'll see him again all the time trying to turn on one of the very first laptops: "But it's the devil's machine this thing !!" Finally dictate his paper. https://t.co/yb0Zw19ObO

"His word was worth all the signatures in the world"

With the players of his team Mondial Promotion, which he will give up when he arrives at OM, a handshake will moreover often be worth a contract. “Beyond his depth of view, what I would like to take away from Pope is the whole character of his integrity, insists Pascal Boniface. His word was worth all the signatures in the world ”. And the verb flourished even more beautifully in writing: "You have to see what we took from Tapie when he arrived," recalls Jean-Louis Pacull. At his first press conference when he took over OM, he insulted the journalists, and the Pope rose first. He did not believe in values, but he believed in principles. And having principles does not make life easier ”.

He still repeated them regularly in his masterclasses eagerly awaited by the students of the new school of journalism in Marseille, which came up in 2010 with his name and that of Jean-Pierre Foucault. The crowd of students cooed with his good words, like the televiewers of the program of Canal + Talents d'Afrique , the equivalent of the CFC for Africa. “We always needed a Pope to enlighten the debates, notes Vincent Radureau, already nostalgic. He had a very precious global vision on major social issues, especially on the exodus of African players to Europe. We rose when he spoke. He had this love of words and language, to hurt or enhance. I remember a president of CAF angry because he had called a puppet. Pope had corrected himself directly. "I was wrong, it is not a puppet, it is a puppet". His disappearance is a great loss ”.

"We always needed a Pope to enlighten the debates"

Including for Jean-Michel Aulas, whom we have rarely known as touching in his tributes. “He was passionate about defending OM with efficiency and righteousness. Which is the hallmark of great presidents. I am really very sad. We are talking about a good man, who had the elegance of the verb and the stature of the people I respect ”. To the point that the President of Lyon had once confided that he had chased "a book of African proverbs to compete with him in humor". But even with the little red book on hand, he could not have done anything against the Pope's natural eloquence of the imperfect subjunctive and elephants.

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