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Join on Telegram Rabat – Retired Moroccan football player Aziz Doufikar has denied that Moroccan football star Hakim Ziyech was addicted to drugs and alcohol after the death of his father in his childhood.
News about the “tough childhood” Ziyech numbered following an interview of the football player with Dutch news outlet De Volkskrant.
In the interview, Ziyech spoke about the hard times he and his family experienced after the death of his father due to a disease.
Ziyech was only 10 when his father died of multiple sclerosis.
“That disease wrecked him. He could do less and less. No more walking, eating, or talking.”
He said that his father worked hard and “smoked a lot.”
“I went to the living room. My father was dead. And there you are, a ten-year-old boy.”
The football player said his father’s death devastated him to the point that he could not go to school.
“Football didn’t matter to me either. I was completely gone,” the player said.
International media, quoting a statement from the interview, spoke about how retired Moroccan football player Doufikar helped Ziyech comeback to a straight rail after he had issues with alcohol and drugs following the death of his father.
Doufikar, however, denied the statements in a recent interview, stating that Ziyech had some troubles in his childhood but he did not smoke nor drink during his childhood.
“Ziyech is my friend, brother, and he has been like my little son. I have been accompanying him since he was 13 after the death of his father. He was with me for a long time training with my son. They went together to school,” the former footballer said.
Doufikar, who was the first Moroccan professional football player in the Netherlands, added that Ziyech’s mother educated him very well and that this helped him be a “committed and persistent young man in his training.”
Doufikar denied all allegations about Ziyech’s drug addiction at a young age, insisting that the young football player was a wise man since he was a little boy.
“He grew up in a poor family, and was subjected to a strong shock after the death of his father while he was still a child. He managed to free himself of the shock to come back to his training to help his little family,” Doufikar stressed.
In recent years, Ziyech made international headlines for his brilliant performances with the Moroccan national team and his Dutch club, Ajax Amsterdam.
The football player was recently signed by British football club Chelsea in a €45 million deal. He will join his new club at the end of the current season, however.
The move to the English Premier League would be Ziyech’s first experience outside of the Netherlands.
Born in Dronten, central Netherlands, Ziyech started his senior football career in 2012 at Dutch club Heerenveen. He moved to Twente in 2014, and then to Ajax in 2016.
