the Nice court docket renders its choice this Thursday | EUROtoday

At the listening to, the coach assured that he had solely expressed his shock to long-time members of the workers, together with Fournier, after having truly heard “racist comments” in regards to the staff on the restaurant. In their hearings, Fournier and a few of these near him had additionally talked about Galtier’s anger on the alternative of sure gamers to not droop Ramadan on match days, as did, for instance, the Muslim gamers from Lille with whom he had gained the championship the earlier season.

“Corridor noises”

At the listening to, Hakim Chalabi, medical director of PSG, got here to clarify the dangers {that a} month of daytime fasting and quick nights posed to the gamers and their performances if it was poorly managed, and that it could be “a malpractice” for a coach to not care. The investigation noted that the Nice players observing the fast had not been removed from the field. But the prosecutor castigated the “blackmail” of “if you don’t eat, you don’t play”, considering that it amounted to discrimination, even if the player was finally lined up on the field without having complied.

And even if Galtier recalled that Ramadan fell that season in April, in the home stretch of a championship where Nice had high ambitions, the prosecutor noted “an obsessive dimension” within the coach’s consideration within the Muslim holy month. Galtier, continued Damien Martinelli, “used” Ramadan to “seek to reduce the number of blacks and Muslims in the team”. All towards a background of odd racism on which Mr. Galtier just isn’t completely lucid.

Several Nice gamers interviewed through the investigation definitely spoke of a discriminatory and racist local weather, however solely “rumors from the corridors”, admitting to having by no means been direct witnesses or victims. Thus, they reported that the coach didn’t admire conventional outfits. One day he truly complained to Fournier about having seen Jean-Clair Todibo arrive “in traditional dress” at 10:22 a.m. But he defined that he misplaced his mood as a result of the defender was late and never in coaching gear.

And if he described two opposing black defenders in entrance of his gamers as “King Kong”, it was to evoke “strength and power”, he defined to the viewers, guaranteeing that he had used the identical phrase shortly after for Nantes defender Nicolas Pallois, a white participant. “In the context of hypersensitivity, bananas, monkey cries, how can we think about that these phrases is not going to harm? “, replied the prosecutor.