Virgil van Dijk: The personal heartache driving Liverpool's 75million man to Premier League title
Virgil van Dijk decided against wearing his father's surname after a bitter family feud aged 12, according to reports.
Close relatives of the Liverpool defender claim he has never forgiven his father for walking out on mother, Hellen.
As a result, the Netherlands captain has worn' Virgil' on the back of his shirt since turning professional with Groningen back in 2011.
Van Dijk's uncle Steven Fo Sieeuw divulged some of the details behind the feud to The Sun on Sunday back in 2018 after his record-breaking move from Southampton.
He said: “Virgil has done amazingly well to be such a success given the ups and downs there have been in his family.
“His dad split with his mother and his three children, including Virgil, found it hard to forgive him for that.
“The truth is his dad was not around for so many important years and it is his mother who is the real hero of this story.
“You don’t take your dad’s name off your shirt without a reason and Virgil has made it very clear how he feels.”
The 27-year-old's father, Ron, took the youngster to training and matches with youth football team WDS’19.
However, Fo Sieeuw insists it was his mother who had the greatest impact on the centre-half's progression to the very top.
"She had a full-time job and three kids to look after, so she never had a minute for herself," he added.
"She spent every day going to work then coming home and looking after the kids and doing all the cooking.
“Ron is a nice guy but you need to be more than that to be a good father. You have to be there for your children.
"Ron married again and his new wife was very domineering so he didn’t see his kids much.
“I feel for Virgil, it’s like he’s been caught in the middle.”
Van Dijk's personal life was thrown into turmoil when his parents split up when he was just 12.
Talking about that difficult time, he told Dutch journalist Jan Mennega in 2011: “I first lived with him [dad] for a while and after that I chose to go back with my mother.
“At that time my brother and sister already lived with her. Then I broke all contact with my dad.
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“At the beginning it wasn’t nice but I don’t need him any more. My father tried to re-establish contact but I don’t want to see him.
“When I get older maybe I will talk to him again, but at this moment I don’t have any feeling for him.”
He added his businessman brother Jordan, 24, and sister Jennifer, 16, also dropped Van Dijk as a surname and started using their mother’s maiden name, Fo Sieeuw.
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