Former Newcastle teammate Papiss Cisse led the tributes to Cheick Tiote at a memorial service in China on Tuesday.
Tiote collapsed and died aged 30 during a training session with his club Beijing Enterprises last Monday.
Cisse, who played alongside Tiote at St James' Park, said at the service: "I lived some extraordinary moments with this man and today he is gone.
"He was like a brother. We shared a lot in life. His family was my family."
Tiote's body is due to be flown back to the Ivory Coast where a private funeral will take place.