Pape Diouf

Pape Diouf — Biography

Mababa "Pape" Diouf (18 December 1951, Abéché, Chad – 31 March 2020, Dakar, Senegal) was a Senegalese-French figure who moved from sports journalism into player representation and football club management. Born into a Senegalese military family, he settled in France at eighteen and, after studying political science, spent the 1970s and 1980s writing a football column for the newspaper La Marseillaise before joining Le Sport, a short-lived rival to L'Équipe.

In the 1990s he became a players' agent, and in 2004 joined Olympique de Marseille as general manager, soon becoming chairman of its executive board and, in 2005, club president — the first and, to date, only black president of a major French football club. He held the post until 2009, when he was forced out amid internal disagreements; under his leadership the club won no trophies but stayed among the top five in the French league and regained financial stability. A Knight of the Legion of Honour, Diouf later helped establish a journalism school in Marseille and divided his time between France and Senegal. He died in Dakar in March 2020 from complications of Covid-19.