Diaz and his mother appeal to his father's kidnappers to release him

Luis Díaz, a Liverpool player, published a statement calling on the Colombian Liberation Army to release his kidnapped father as soon as possible.

The rebel armed group kidnapped Diaz's father and mother last week, but Colombian police succeeded in freeing the mother, but the father's fate remains unknown.

After missing the match between Liverpool and Bournemouth last week, Diaz returned to the game against Luton Town and made a huge impact after equalising for the Reds in the final moments.

Díaz's first appeal to the kidnappers was in the same match when he celebrated his goal with a T-shirt that read "Freedom for Dad".

After the match, Díaz published an emotional statement appealing to the abductees to end this matter and return his father to his normal life:

This is not the player who is speaking, today Lucho Diaz, son of Luis Manuel Diaz; Mane, my father. A hardworking man, the pillar of the family, he is kidnapped now.

I ask the ELN to release my father as soon as possible. I also ask international associations to work on this in order to guarantee his freedom.

Every second, every minute, we feel even more anxious. We have no words to describe the terrible feelings our family feels, and it will remain the same as long as he does not return home.

I beg you to release my father now, respecting his integrity, and I would like to thank all Colombians as well as the international community for your support.

Luis Diaz's mother, Selinis Marolanda, also came out to demand the release of her husband in comments quoted by the Daily Mirror.

"I want them to release him now, release his captors to come back to me now, because we want him back home," Marolanda said.

Negotiations between the Colombian government and the ELN are still ongoing to reach an agreement to release Diaz's father.