By Richard van Poortvliet
April 9 – Lokomotiv Moscow have hit out at speculation from the British tabloid the Daily Mirror that their midfielder, Lassana Diarra, was about to quit the club to join the war in Syria.
The newpaper reported social media rumours that Diarra, who had spells at Real Madrid and Chelsea, had gone to crisis hit Syria in the Middle East to become a jihadist. The war is now into a fourth year and has cost the lives of over 150,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Lokomotiv Moscow midfielder “denies in the most formal, the most categorical, the most absolute fashion that he has gone to Syria,” said Diarra’s agent, Eric Dupond Moretti. “He has never set foot in Syria.”
Lokomotiv’s head coach, Leonid Kuchuk expects the 29 year-old to return to training shortly after an injury had ruled him out of the Railwaymen’s last three games.
The Moscow side is currently top of the Russian Premier League table with six games left in the season, while the French international has scored one goal in 13 games for Lokomotiv, after joining them at the start of the season from Anji Makhachkala.
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