Cissé started his career at his boyhood club Arles-Avignon in 1989, before playing for the youth teams at Nîmes and Auxerre.

[5] He went on to play in Greece with Panathinaikos, Italy with Lazio, Qatar with Al-Gharafa, Russia with Kuban Krasnodar and Switzerland with Yverdon Sport.

[12] After being promoted to the first team squad by coach Guy Roux, Cissé made his Ligue 1 debut at the age of 17 as a substitute against Paris Saint-Germain on 20 March 1999.

[12] In the 2001–02 season, Cissé was the top scorer in Ligue 1 with 22 goals from 29 matches, as Auxerre finished in third place and qualified for the 2002–03 UEFA Champions League.

[13] 2003–04 proved to be Cissé's most successful goalscoring season, with 30 goals in all competitions, including 26 in Ligue 1 to win the golden boot for the second time.

[13] Overall, Cissé scored 70 goals in 128 league games for Auxerre,[14] before signing for Liverpool in a deal worth over £14 million in the summer of 2004.

[19][20] However, in an unexpected return, Cissé was able to come on as a 75th-minute substitute in the second leg of Liverpool's Champions League quarter-final tie with Juventus on 13 April 2005.

Cissé also scored Liverpool's opening goal in the 2006 FA Cup Final with a sliding shot past West Ham United keeper Shaka Hislop.

[32] On 12 May 2007, he scored two goals in the French Cup Final against Sochaux, although Marseille still lost the match 5–4 on penalties, after a 2–2 stalemate after extra time following a late equaliser by another Liverpool player on loan Anthony Le Tallec.

[citation needed] On 7 July 2007, Marseille's president Pape Diouf announced that the club had struck a deal with Liverpool to sign Cissé permanently, for an estimated fee of €8 million.

[33] But subsequently, Cissé was linked with a return to the English Premier League with Blackburn Rovers, Wigan Athletic, Tottenham Hotspur, Portsmouth and Bolton Wanderers said to be interested.

[39] Manager Roy Keane also expressed his desire to sign Cissé, telling The News of the World: "I'd be happy to break the transfer record if Djibril's doing the business".

[41] After scoring in a 4–1 victory against Hull, Cissé stated that despite the departure of Roy Keane from Sunderland, he still wished to complete a permanent move to the club.

[42] On 18 April 2009, Cissé scored his tenth league goal of the season in a 1–0 victory over Hull City at the Stadium of Light.

[51] He made his debut in a UEFA Europa League match against FK Rabotnički on 18 August, scoring two goals in a 6–0 win for the home side.

[57] Three days later, he was sent off for the second time in his first five games for QPR when he received a straight red card for a two-footed lunge on Sunderland's Fraizer Campbell.

QPR went on to lose the match 2-3, as City scored two goals in stoppage time and clinched their first Premier League title, but avoided relegation as Bolton succumbed to a 2–2 draw at Stoke.

[65] In June 2015, Cissé signed for Saint-Pierroise of the Réunion Premier League on a month-long contract, starting in September of the same year.

[72] In April 2021, Cissé joined American side Panathinaikos Chicago ahead of the 2021 National Premier Soccer League season.

[74] Cissé played for the France under-19 team[75] in the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship, where they reached the quarter-finals, with the player scoring six goals in five games.

When ten minutes into the game, he was knocked off balance by the China captain Zheng Zhi and fell with his leg twisting under him.

[90] During the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, Cissé played three games,[14] but did not win a place in the France squad for the finals.

[91] After demonstrating his goal-scoring form for Panathinaikos, in March 2010, Cissé was recalled to the French squad for a friendly against Spain in Paris.

When introduced into the match as a substitute, he had a considerable impact, heading on a Florent Malouda cross only for Iker Casillas to push it onto the post.

[92] On 11 May 2010, he was included by manager Raymond Domenech in France's final 23-man squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

On 22 June, he was in France's starting eleven for the team's final game of the group stage versus South Africa.

[95] He was raised a Muslim and converted from Islam to Catholic Christianity at the age of 15 after taking catechism classes at a training center in Nîmes.

[102][99] The wedding took place at Bodelwyddan Castle, with notable guests including Shaun Wright-Phillips and Cissé's French national teammates Louis Saha and Sylvain Wiltord.

[105] Cissé had a cameo role in a French action comedy film Taxi 4, featuring in a high-speed driving scene.

[109] In October 2015, Cissé was one of four people arrested in France over an alleged attempt to blackmail Mathieu Valbuena in a sex tape extortion plot.