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A Premier League footballer feared he was being kidnapped after he got into the wrong taxi outside his hotel.

Newcastle United’s new £8.5m signing Chancel Mbemba, who does not speak English, was left panic-stricken by a bizarre series of events on the day of his debut.

The 21-year-old DR Congo international left the Hilton Hotel on Gateshead Quayside and climbed into a waiting cab thinking it was a club-hired vehicle to take him to St James’ Park.

The driver was in fact booked to go to a supermarket in Newcastle.

He tried to explain this to Mbemba but the star did not understand.

(Image: Serena Taylor)

The driver set off for the store and when he went past the ground, Mbemba started to panic.

To add to the bizarre chain of events, the player was dressed in a £117 black Tuxedo suit, white shirt and dicky bow from Next - after being told to ‘look sharp’ for match days.

It is believed he tried to call club officials, but eventually ended up getting through to the translator hired to help him settle in England.

He assured him: 'Chancel, I think you have got in the wrong cab’.

The player, frustrated and worried at being late - which would have incurred a large club fine - was unable to explain this to the taxi driver.

(Image: Serena Taylor)

Confusion continued as they reached their ‘destination’. Finally, the translator spoke to the taxi driver on the defender’s mobile phone to explain the situation - and the star got to the ground on time.

He was pictured striding past the dug out on the pitch before Newcastle’s 2-2 draw with Southampton on August 8 as he arrived, looking cool, calm and collected, with his toiletries bag in his hand, listening to music on his ear phones.

“It all turned out fine in the end as he had an outstanding game and was very pleased with his debut,” said a source. “But he really did think he was being abducted at one stage and the whole situation was difficult because of the language barrier.

“It was funny afterwards but hard for him at the time. The driver apparently thought he had the right fare.”

Mbemba is one of nine siblings, and his mother was a professional basketball player in their native Congo.

He has risen from humble beginnings in Kinshasa, and dedicated himself to his career, going out for extra sprint runs late at night while he playing for Anderlecht in Belgium.

(Image: Stu Forster)

In an interview there, he said: “Everything I do is for my parents but also my four sisters and four brothers. I have the chance to make a career as a top athlete and to help my family. Only after doing that will I think of myself.”

He has been given four different birthdays at various times in his career - at his first two clubs his birth year was 1988. When he played for Congo in 2011, he was registered as having been born in 1991.

Anderlecht have registered his birth year as 1994, hence his age of 21. But he told how he underwent bone tests to establish his ‘exact age’ at 21. “As me and my friends all know, the results prove what my age is. I just go out and play football, no misinformation," he said.

Kidnap is common in Democratic Republic of Congo remains unstable. Armed groups and bandits are known to kill, rape, abduct, pillage, and steal vehicles, according to advice given by the US Government to their citizens last year.

In the past year, several Americans were illegally detained or robbed while being searched.