Today, Friday, the judicial police in the French city of Nice arrested Frenchman Christophe Galtier, coach of Paris Saint-Germain, and his son, on charges of discrimination, according to the city’s public prosecutor.
A preliminary investigation was opened in this case last April due to “discriminatory statements on the basis of race or religious affiliation” towards his players, when he was coach of Nice for the 2021-2022 season.
The 56-year-old coach has been facing growing controversy since mid-April, when independent journalist Roman Molina and then Radio Monte Carlo Sports published an email attributed to former Nice sports director Julien Fournier claiming that Galtier had made discriminatory statements towards a section of the team. Nice.
Fournier also mentioned in particular these remarks attributed to Galtier, “I had to take into account the reality of the city and that, in fact, we could not have this number of blacks and Muslims in the team… He told me about his desire to change the team deeply,” also explaining that he wanted Limit the number of Muslim players as much as possible.
This message, which the “French” could not verify, was sent at the end of last season to Dave Brailsford, director of sports at Ineos Petrochemical Company, owner of the club, to denounce racist and anti-Islamic statements as part of building or managing the team.
Immediately after that – in a statement – Galtier denied making discriminatory statements about the players whose training he was supervising in Nice, and said at the time in this regard, that he was “deeply shocked by the words that were attributed to me and that were conveyed by some in an irresponsible way that shocked me in the depths of my humanity.”
For his part, a source close to the negotiations said Thursday that Saint-Germain is about to announce “next week” his contract with the new Spanish coach, Luis Enrique, as soon as he ends the negotiations related to the departure of the current coach, Galtier.
