By Ryan Benson
19 Jul 2011 20:21:00
El Hadji Diouf sees red in Rangers’ Scottish Cup tie against Celtic (Getty)
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Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean has confirmed that forward El Hadji Diouf will face disciplinary action when he returns to the club from his holiday.
The rest of the Rovers players returned to training two weeks ago, however the Senegalese forward was unaccountable for and his employers were unable to contact the former Liverpool man for the majority of the past fortnight.
Diouf spent some of last season on loan at Rangers where he helped the club win the Scottish Premier League ahead of rivals Celtic, but Ally McCoist’s team decided against taking him on full time.
Kean told reporters: “I don’t know where he is right now but I know where he will be tomorrow – or at least he’s telling us he’ll be here tomorrow.
“He’s not been here since the end of last season and we tried to make contact with him and couldn’t.
“He will face a disciplinary when he comes in, we’ll discuss that with him and his representatives and we will see what the way forward is. Without a doubt he will be facing a fine.
“I wanted to talk to him and see where his head was at. He was on loan at Rangers last season and we had an emergence of younger players in his position.
“I wanted to see what he felt. He has one year left, we respect the fact he has a contract but we are looking for him, like everyone else, to come back on the date we set – which he didn’t.
“So we have to discuss that and also discuss the options of him potentially moving on.”
The Rovers boss went on to talk about the postponement of his side’s pre-season tour of India following the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, but insisted the tour had not been cancelled.
He continued: “”The trip is not cancelled, it is postponed to another date because of the activity out there,” he said.
“The board had a meeting with the owners and spoke and decided we had to go through a number of different checks and that trip will now take place at the beginning of October.
“The players are looking for guidance and as long as everything was explained to them they were fine as a group.
“I think the owners would have been disappointed if it was totally finished but the fact it has been put back softens the disappointment.”
The club and owners also released a joint statement that addressed the decision to postpone the tour, declaring safety as their main priority.
It read: “Safety is always our top priority and after detailed discussions with our security and legal advisors we have been left with no option other than to postpone.
“While everyone is obviously disappointed, we all accept the circumstances and the reasoning.
“We are now looking forward to the trip to India in a few weeks’ time.”