Arsenal left-back Armand Traore has revealed that he will go under the knife at the end of the season to remove a series of tattoos which adorn his body. The former Portsmouth loan star, who looks set to replace Kieran Gibbs in the Gunners starting line-up against Chelsea on Sunday, also confirmed that the decision was being taken following his embracing of the Muslim faith.
Speaking to the Arsenal official matchday programme Traore stated:
“I’m planning to do this in the summer. They’ll put me under anesthetic and then do it all, and when I wake up everything will be gone. It needs a bit of recoevery time though so I’m not going to do it during the football season.
“If I had been into my religion properly before I’d had the tattoos done, I think I would never have got them. I think it’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life but I will try and correct it.
“My religion has benefits both personally and in my career. It is all about many of the things that are good in football too – like resting, doing everything right, being nice to people, respecting, not swearing or lying, being fair.
“I’ve always been Muslim but I wasn’t really practising it, I was just saying to people that I was Muslim. I don’t know what made me change – it was just slowly, slowly, a gradual development.”