During his tenure at the club, his playing style was compared to Ruud Gullit and attracted interest from Juventus, then coached by Carlo Ancelotti.

[3] During the summer of 2002, after receiving offers from many European clubs, Vitesse sold Diarra to Lyon by €4 million, although the player favoured a move to Ajax to rejoin his old manager Ronald Koeman.

[7] However, on 18 August 2006, Real Madrid agreed a fee of €26 million[8] and four days later, Diarra was unveiled at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium by Calderón and was assigned the number 6 shirt.

Diarra had now been a league champion for six consecutive seasons, after winning Ligue 1 with Lyon between 2002–03 and 2005–06, and La Liga with Real Madrid in 2006–07 and 2007–08.

[10] In October 2008, while playing an international fixture for Mali against Chad, Diarra was stretchered off the field after receiving a blow to his knee.

He was rested for a month and made his next appearance in late November, but was forced to undergo surgery after aggravating his knee injury, which ruled him out for the remainder of the 2008–09 season.

[21] After impressing manager Martin Jol throughout his 11 Premier League match, on 17 May, Diarra signed a new one-year contract at the club, keeping him at Craven Cottage until the end of the 2012–13 season.

[24] Diarra re-signed for Fulham on 26 March 2014 on a contract that expired at the end of the 2013–14 season in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to help the club survive relegation.