By Matthew Jones
September 22 2002

Newcastle's Sir Bobby Robson has revealed how death threats forced Lomano LuaLua to play for the Congo against Libya earlier this month. The tricky hitman, who has enjoyed a fine start to the season, originally refused to play in his country's African Nation's Cup 3-2 defeat on September 8. Newcastle's Sir Bobby Robson has revealed how death threats forced Lomano LuaLua to play for the Congo against Libya earlier this month.

The tricky hitman, who has enjoyed a fine start to the season, originally refused to play in his country's African Nation's Cup 3-2 defeat against Libya on September 8.

But he now claims that he was forced to change his mind after his grandmother and other members of his family received phone calls threatening them if he did not play. It had been thought his subsequent omission from the Newcastle first team was down to manager Robson's anger at his decision to answer his country's call.

But the Magpies chief has revealed: "To say we didn't want him to go is completely wrong. Lomana came to me and said he didn't want to go and I said: 'Fine, we'll help you with that.'
"But then on the Thursday or Friday before the game he said he had to go because his family had been threatened.

"We said: 'OK, is this true?' He said it was - that his family, and in particular his grandmother, had received threatening phone calls. Even then we said: 'If you still don't want to go, we'll sort this situation out - we will contact FIFA about it.' "But he said he wanted to go so."

LuaLua has refused to comment on the threats and it is not known who is suspected of making them but Robson insists the 21-year-old is still very much in his first-team plans.

He added: "He's done well for us this season and he's in the frame for our Champions League game against Feyenoord on Tuesday."