Mali paid a last tribute in Bamako on Wednesday to Salif Keita, glory of African football and former player of Saint-Etienne and Marseille who died at the age of 76, noted an AFP journalist.

Hundreds of people, children, former teammates, childhood friends, anonymous people and officials from Mali or elsewhere, including Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga, flocked to the Place du Cinquantenaire, on the banks of the Niger River, to say goodbye to the first African Ballon d’Or of 1970, who died of illness on Saturday in a private clinic in Bamako.

Tributes full of emotion and memories followed one another: to his extraordinary talent, then to his action as a national sports executive, and to his role as a father.

“He gave everything to Mali, player, coach, minister, Malian football federation. His football center gave geniuses to Mali,” said Idrissa Maïga, a friend and former teammate at AS Real Bamako and in the national team, where Keita made his debut at 16. “Djo, go in peace,” he concluded.

Giant posters of the deceased were erected around the remains, covered with the green, yellow and red flag of Mali and arrived in the square carried by former teammates and relatives.

Delegations came from neighboring Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea, but also from France.

“Salif Keita is a monument, he took nothing lightly, and each Mali-Guinea match (was) a challenge for him,” greeted former Guinean player Chérif Souleymane.

Nicknamed “Domingo” by his friends, Salif Keita, a slender player with a feline appearance, endowed with unparalleled technique and a keen eye for goal, was one of the greatest attackers of his generation.

Born in Bamako in 1946 into a family of eleven children, he led Stade Malien in 1965 and AS Real Bamako in 1966 to the final of the African Cup of Champions, and later the selection of Mali in the final of the African Cup of Nations in 1972.

In five years with the Greens of Saint-Etienne, he won three championships (1968, 1969, 1970) and two French Cups (1968, 1970). His total goals: 143 (in 186 matches), including 42 during the 1970-1971 season, which he only finished second in the scorers’ rankings behind Croatian Josip Skoblar (44, record still in force).

After the Greens, he left for Marseille in 1972. He then played in Valencia (Spain), at Sporting Portugal before ending his career in the United States, in Boston.

After his sports career, he invested in the hotel industry before founding the first football training center in his country, from which emerged talents such as Mahamadou Diarra (Lyon, Real Madrid) and his nephew Seydou Keita (Lens, Barcelona ). He was Minister Delegate in the early 1990s. He led the national federation in the 2000s.

Her eldest daughter Raky remembered a “loving and caring” father, who paid his children “good dibi (grilled meat) and gave us big chunks”. “Dad, your parents are there (…) your friends are there, your brothers and your sisters are there; not in black but in color because you loved color,” she said.

Salif Keita was then to be buried in the cemetery of Hamdallaye, a district of Bamako.