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Football

23rd Dec 2016

Emmanuel Eboué discusses his daily biblical texts to Jamie Redknapp

The former Arsenal player has shed some light on the story Redknapp told on ALOTO.

Simon Lloyd

This year, as we all know by now, has had its fair share of odd news.

So, a few weeks back when Jamie Redknapp told the rest of the A League Of Their Own gang about how he received a daily text message from Emmanuel Eboué, we hardly batted an eyelid.

“For some reason, his [Eboué’s] little boy is the same age as mine and I met him at football,” Redknapp had explained.

“He wants me to become a Christian and he keeps sending me these messages about turning to God. I don’t even know him.

“Every day I get a ‘Thought for the Day’.”

Redknapp didn’t exactly need much in the way of encouragement from host James Corden and the rest of the show’s contestants to read one of the messages, as is shown in the clip below.

Now, just in time for the end of the year, the former Arsenal player has explained why he sends a daily message in the direction of Redknapp as part of an interview with The Telegraph.

“I pray a lot and read a lot of the Bible,” Eboué says. “Every morning at 4 o’clock when I wake up I pray, read the Bible and write a message in my phone and every day I will send a thought for the day to each person in my contacts book.”

Referring to Redknapp’s appearance on ALOTO, the Ivorian added:

“A few people said: ‘Hey, he’s laughing at you on television.’ I think he thought it was just him I was sending the messages to when actually I send them to everyone in my phone.”

“I sent him a message saying, ‘Jamie, I’m very sorry, I didn’t pick on you, it’s just what I do each day.’ So he sent me a message straight back saying ‘No, it’s no problem, it was just a joke’ so it’s not a big deal.”

So there you have it, a slight crossing of the wires.

We’re still none the wiser as to whether Redknapp is still receiving his daily text from Eboué…