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Read all about it - El-Hadji Diouf is so tired of generating negative headlines that he is setting up his own newspaper. In the pantomime world of the Barclays Premier League, the 27-year-old is portrayed as a serial spitter and a poster boy for bling, but Sunderland's summer signing has a softer and more complex side. Roy Keane may wish to look away now, but Diouf is engaging and, well, quite nice.

It is for his on-field aggression as much as his ability that Keane has tempted Diouf from Bolton Wanderers - “a thorn in the side”, the manager has called him - and Liverpool's shoulders may slump microscopically when they see their former player on the team-sheet this evening. Yet Diouf is a more rounded figure than his caricature allows.

He was a dazzling presence at Sunderland's training ground this week, sporting diamonds around his neck, on his fingers, in his ear and on a tooth as he discussed the charity he has established with Akon, the hip-hop artist and a close friend. Funny and sharp-edged - “I'm a fashion victim, but Pascal Chimbonda is just a victim,” he said - here was proof that appearances can deceive.

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“The Dioufy Foundation is designed to help people in Africa and elsewhere,” he said. “My charity has a slogan: 'Give The Kids A Chance.' It's a schools project. Two weeks ago, me and Akon went to see it.

“My charity is very big. Me and Akon grew up together and do everything together. We are the two most famous people in Senegal right now. We do things like this together because we are lucky. We earn good money and we like to help people back home.”

His African portfolio stretches to the media, which should guarantee generous publicity. “The first thing I set up in Senegal was Eleven Holdings, a company that looks after my interests,” he said. “I'm opening a monthly newspaper, called Eleven Star. It will cover sports and everything.”

Keane hopes to read stories about Diouf scoring and making goals. “The manager used to play, he used to be a bad loser and we used to fight on the pitch when Manchester United played Liverpool,” Diouf said. “On the pitch, all I care about is succeeding. But I don't think I have ever been bad to a referee. In the whole of my career I have only ever had three red cards. I think I only had five yellow cards and that was because referees watched me. Sometimes I have felt like the victim.”

The statistics show that Diouf was booked 13 times in the league last season, but Keane is unlikely to bridle at this stretching of the truth; he has long demanded that his team develop a “streetwise” streak. Diouf is not short of it, or of a swagger that alienated some at Anfield; Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard were not admirers. “I had good days at Liverpool,” Diouf said. “I don't regret anything. We had plenty of individual players but no team. When I was at Bolton, they were not better than Liverpool, but finishing sixth was something. That was with a team, not individuals.”

Diouf explains his outlandish dress sense as follows: “I'm special, just like I am on the pitch. I like the nice clothes, the taste in colour. My medallion is made of diamonds and it has the names of my mum, my wife and my daughter on it. Everything on me is diamond, but it all goes in my locker. We have good security and I trust my team-mates.”

A bit different but, contrary to expectations, not all bad.