Diao delighted as Stoke launch Senegal football scheme

Stoke City midfielder Salif Diao is delighted his club is getting involved in Senegalese football.

The 32-year-old midfielder has lent his support to Stoke City's decision to send three of their community staff to Senegal, to help train aspiring coaches.

The Stoke trio – Warren Leat, Kenny Barton and Dean Latham – have been in Diao's home country this week continuing the work the Stoke midfielder started when he set up an academy in his hometown of Kedougou.

Diao hopes his academy, and the Stoke project, will help Senegalese youngsters break into the game without having to making the same sacrifices he had to.

He told The Sentinel: "I moved when I was 13, because there were no football academies where I lived, but I'd heard Monaco were setting one up in Dakar.

"It was 400 miles, so, although my father gave me the bus fare, he thought I was joking when I said I was going.

"I stayed with one of my old teachers and their family, but they lived on the outskirts of Dakar, so it was still an hour's bus ride to the stadium. I sat at the trials every morning for a week, from 7am to 3pm, with no lunch, but they were only calling the kids who had been recommended.

"I was just a little boy who had come from nowhere. I didn't even have any shoes, so I had to make friends so I could borrow a pair. I only had flip flops and I couldn't play in those. Eventually, a scout heard me talking to one of the other boys. He couldn't believe I'd come so far for the trial. He asked me if I was any good and, when I said I was, he told me to come back tomorrow and prove it.

"I was then spotted by the Senegal under-15s coach, so I played for them, then the under-17s, and then signed for Monaco."