Christophe Galtierformer coach of Lionel Messi at PSG, he will sit in the dock in ten days. The DT will appear before a court in an investigation that accuses him of “xenophobia and discrimination” during his time in Nice (2021-2022). The former defender and current strategist of Al-Duhail (Qatar) faces three years in prison and a fine of about 45 thousand euros. Given the testimonies of his former players and assistants at the Côte d’Azur club, Galtier responds in the same way: he denies any anomalous behavior. And his lawyers are sure that Justice will agree with him.
The Parisian newspaper L’Equipe reconstructed the testimonies that appear in the court case and that incriminate Galtier. “It all started with a mysterious statement,” the newspaper reconstructs. And he adds: “In September 2022, Julien Fournier, Nice’s football director between August 2019 and July 2022, spoke to RMC about his stormy relationship with Galtier. His enmity is well known, but the reasons for his disagreement are not so well known. “If I explain the real reasons, they will no longer let him enter any locker room in France or Europe,” says Fournier in his text, referring to “serious things.”
L’Equipe continues with the story: “The fuse was lit and, six months later, the independent journalist and influencer Romain Molina and RMC Sport revealed the content of a long email sent by Fournier to Dave Brailsford, sports director of Ineos (company owner of Nice). The football director, who denies having been behind its dissemination to the media, insists that he wrote it, not with the intention of revenge, but so as not to be criticized later for not having acted or reported possible criminal behavior. In particular, he recounts a scene that would have taken place in his office on August 9, 2021. During this discussion, Galtier would have stated that the team had to “take into account the reality of the city” and could not count on so many ‘blacks and Muslims'”.
The story continued and became a legal case: “The matter caused a scandal and the Nice prosecutor’s office decided to open a preliminary investigation for “discrimination” on its own initiative, that is, without a prior complaint. On April 14, 2023, the club’s offices were raided. The investigations were embarrassing, and not only for Galtier, who was at PSG at the time, since no one in the club’s management seemed to have discussed the situation with any judicial or police authority. Before the police, the case quickly became a duel of words against words. Questioned by the judicial police, Jean-Pierre Rivère, president of the entity, was very vague. He said that he did not precisely remember the meeting in question, although he had attended it, nor what might have been said. He admits that his coach at the time had a direct style and was very capable of saying things in a somewhat ‘frontal’ way.”
In the midst of the investigation, a computer expert searched Galtier’s laptop for a series of keywords: “Muslim,” “Fournier,” and “Arab.” He didn’t find anything. According to L’Equipe, however, “members of the Nice coaching staff gave incriminating testimonies. Frédéric Gioria, a club legend who spent his entire career at OGC Nice (235 games) and captained the team that won the French Cup in 1997, is especially tough. He told the police that when they confirmed the hiring of Bilal Brahimi (a French-Algerian left winger) his response was: “Another Muslim, I don’t want him. We’ve had too much already.’”
According to Gioria, Galtier also described Youcef Atal and Hicham Boudaoui (both Algerians) as “creeping”. And the DT, who is unaware of such statements, would have added: “The worst are the Algerians.” Another key testimony in the case, according to L’Equipe, was that of Hachim Ali Mbae, a former video analyst from Nice. The former club employee said that in a match with Saint-Etienne (September 2021), Galtier spoke at halftime about the team’s strategy to win. And he referred to Harold Moukoudi and Mickael Nadé, the two central defenders of the rival team, as “the two King Kongs.”
Always in agreement with the L’Equipe report, Ali Mbae testified to another meeting with Galtier: this time, at the club’s facilities. According to the witness, Galtier told him that he had had no problems with the religious beliefs of his soccer players. Except with the Algerians. The reason? “They are too extreme,” the coach responded. The French newspaper highlighted the case of Turkish forward Burak Yilmaz, who also defended the Nice shirt and who agreed not to fast during Ramadan on match days.
The court file contains another face-to-face meeting between the former sports director (Fournier) and the disgraced coach (Galtier). According to the former’s story, the coach listed the names of the footballers he would have liked to see leave the team (it was March 2022). The list was made up – according to Fournier’s testimony – of Youcef Atal, Jean-Clair Todibo and Hicham Boudaoui, three footballers who profess the Muslim religion. According to L’Equipe’s chronology, there was an argument between Fournier and Galtier. The name of Turkish defender Ozan Kabak came up to reinforce the team in the June winter market and the coach would have jumped with the top stoppers: “Julien, you still didn’t understand it. “I don’t want more blacks or Arabs.” Galtier, as he did throughout the process prior to the trial, denied having had the conversation in those terms and justified himself by saying that he was not willing to sell the best players on his team, among whom were Atal and Todibo.
Todibo himself, a former Barcelona player, was also questioned by the police in the context of the Galtier case. The central defender, who continues to play in Nice, said his former coach had pressured him to break his fast. And he confessed that he had learned that the DT had described him as “Salafist (Salafism is an Islamic fundamentalist movement) and extremist.” L’Equipe also adds that Pablo Rosario, Dutch midfielder, declared like Todibo: he said that he felt discriminated against for being Muslim.
L’Equipe closes its report with the responses of Galtier’s lawyers, Olivier Martin and Sébastien Schapira. “Christophe Galtier is determined 10 days from this hearing. He reserves his statements for the court. He is finally waiting for this public and contradictory debate in which he will demonstrate that, evidently, he has never discriminated against or harassed anyone. “His entire professional career and reputation attest to his irreproachable character.”
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