At Manchester United, Eric Djemba-Djemba was billed as the new Roy Keane. It took just 20 appearances for supporters to reach a different verdict.
These days they call him Sir Alex Ferguson’s worst-ever signing. In response, St Mirren’s new man offers a shrug.
Youthful naivety is the defence. Not only for his ineffectual performances on the pitch. But also for the unflattering headlines and hedonistic excess which shattered his reputation off it.
Despite earning £19,000 a week, his finances were a mess. Former agent, Christophe Mongay, claimed he was ‘on a different planet’. That at the peak of his Old Trafford meltdown, Djemba-Djemba juggled his cash and debts between 30 different bank accounts and owned 10 4×4 cars.
Reclining in a natty cap and some flash jewellery within St Mirren’s media room yesterday, the midfielder – a former African Nations Cup winner with Cameroon – was keen to put the record straight.
‘You know, the headlines say one thing. Reality is another thing,’ he said.
‘They said I had ten cars. But you cannot have ten cars! It was a rumour at the time, but it wasn’t true.
‘Where would I put ten cars?
‘My house was the old house of Rio Ferdinand and Rio only had two cars. I wouldn’t have known where to put ten cars. It wasn’t that big a house.
‘They said I had 30 bank accounts as well. 30 bank accounts? Come on…no one has 30 bank accounts.’
Say what? Eric Djemba-Djemba claims that most of the headlines written about him are untrue
At Manchester United a thick skin is a useful part of player’s artillery. At 22, however, Djemba-Djemba reacted how any young man in the same position might. He called his mother.
‘All that stuff was difficult for me. When I read it I was upset,’ he admitted. ‘My mum died three years ago but back then she was in Cameroon and I said to her “I need you to come here”. So we got her a visa after 10 days and I translated it all for her. ‘She had no hesitation. She said “stop playing football now. Please.”
‘I said “no, I can’t. It’s my life, I like it.” But that was a difficult time for me.
‘After training, I would go home, lift up the newspaper, read stuff about myself that wasn’t true and that was difficult.
‘I was a young player. But it’s football. It’s my job. It was what I did.’
Signed from Nantes for £3.5million, Djemba-Djemba conceded he was too young to fill the boots of an old master.
‘It was difficult to replace Roy Keane at that age,’ he said. ‘But I trained and played with great players like Giggs, Paul Scholes, and Roy Keane.’
In retrospect, the Keane description was a troubling one. A ball and chain around his ankles.
‘If Sir Alex took me from Nantes because his idea was to replace Roy Keane, well then that was difficult for me,’ he admitted yesterday. ‘Roy Keane is a legend. When I went there he was 35 and had 350 games there it was difficult to replace that.
‘But I learned so much from that time. I am a man now and three years ago I saw Sir Alex in Denmark.
‘I was nominated to be the player of the year in the Danish league when I was playing with Odense.
‘Peter Schmeichel invited him over to the ceremony and I saw him there.
‘We had a good talk and he said he’d have been happy to sign me at the age I was then I was 29.’
These days, he is part of an ignominious body of players featuring the likes of Kleberson and Juan Sebastian Veron. Ferguson didn’t get much wrong, but Djemba-Djemba was quietly sold to Aston Villa for just less than £2m after a couple of years. In Birmingham things barely improved.
His cash problems and debts were a large part of the problem. Many were self-inflicted, a direct result of his obliging, overly trusting nature.
‘When people came and asked me for help I would always say yes,’ he claimed. ‘I wouldn’t think about tomorrow or the problems I was making for myself if I didn’t get it back. I was too trusting.
‘I trust in God and God opened my eyes.
‘Maybe he wanted that to happen to me so that tomorrow I might be better.’
Bankruptcy was an inevitable consequence of the spending. Asked if he lost everything, however, he is dismissive.
‘No. Not everything,’ he said. ‘I lost a lot, but not everything. And I thank God for that.’
He still keeps in touch with former teammates Mikael Silvestre, David Bellion and Louis Saha and remains unrepentant over the past.
‘It was difficult handling the money and so on, but I don’t have any regrets about that,’ he said. ‘I am a grown up now, I have learned from all that.
‘I am happy with what I have achieved in my career and when I stop playing football I will be proud of what I did for my clubs.’
At 32, St Mirren are merely the latest in a growing list. After Villa he rejected offers from West Ham and West Brom to play first team football at Burnley, before he snapped up a lucrative contract in Qatar.
From there, he had a successful spell with Odense in Denmark where he overcame Motherwell in the Europa League before moving on to Hapoel Tel Aviv and Partizan Belgrade.
‘I cancelled my contract in Partizan because I went two or three months without being paid my salary,’ he revealed. ‘I could not continue like that.
‘My agent said there was a good opportunity to go to the Scottish league.
‘I said “yes, why not?”. ‘It is similar to the English league and to me it’s the same country.
‘I am happy the club have given me the opportunity to come here. I am 32, but I have some years in front of me.’
His move to Paisley is one of the more bizarre of recent times, yet the player himself sees nothing unusual in a transfer St Mirren manager, Danny Lennon, regards as a coup ahead of Sunday’s Scottish Cup clash with Dundee United.
‘Eric is probably the biggest signing ever for St Mirren when you look at his previous transfers,’ said Lennon. ‘Money in the game has gone ballistic and totally out of control but he’s still one I believe will excite our fans.
‘We’re delighted to have Eric on board. He’s vastly experienced, he’s played in the Champions League, World Cups, Confederations Cup and he’s won the African Nations Cup.
‘He’s 32 but still full of ambition and he wants a ticket to the World Cup and we can give him the platform to do that.
‘People might ask, with all due respect to St Mirren, why he’s coming to us. But both parties can benefit from it, he wants to play and try and feature at another World Cup and he brings quality and experience to us.’
