The affair broke in April and the climax happened on the last day of June: current PSG coach Christophe Galiter and his son are in police custody from 8am with suspicions of “discrimination based on an alleged race or membership of a religion”! Galtier and his son John Valovic were summoned by the public prosecutor of Nice due to allegations brought by former director Julien Fournier, who was the coach’s employer while they were both in Nice. Galtier denied accusations as soon as they were revealed in the French press, but investigation started by the prosecutor anyway and after a few months of gathering evidence and taking testimonies from the Nice employees, players and coaches, it was decided it’s time to act. It looks like the prosecutor has something, since he decided to take Galiter and son into custody. According to RMC, searches were carried out at the headquarters of OGC Nice as part of this investigation. Several Nice players and leaders such as club president Jean-Pierre Rivere, as well as current coach Didier Digard were heard by the investigators. This is also the case of Julien Fournier, former football director of OGC Nice, directly linked to the first revelations of this affair. Galtier’s lawyer didn’t respond yet to this news, while the prosecutor promised to have a statement by the end of the day.🚨 Christophe Galtier and his son were taken into police custody as part of the investigation into discrimination at OGC Nice. 👀 (Source: @RMCsport ) pic.twitter.com/JAWatyVSrF— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) June 30, 2023 Everything started during the 2021 season, his first and last with Nice, where he and then sporting director Julien Fournier fell out and later Galtier signed with PSG while Fournier also left the club, but gave first indication of what was to follow: ‘Galtier would never be able to enter a locker room again, neither in France nor in Europe”. But he was quiet about the reasons why wouldn’t he be allowed to coach again, unit April 2023. Then ‘After Foot’ revealed on RMC an email, sent to Nice management by Fournier, in which he accused Galtier heavily. Former sporting director denied publicly that he was the source to give that to the press, but never said that the accusations in the email were incorrect. And what was said in email?“Christophe Galtier told me that I had to take into account the ‘reality of the city’ and that we couldn’t have so many blacks and Muslims in the team. He said to me ‘Last night, I went to the restaurant and everyone came down on me to say that we have a team of blacks. Our team does not reflect what people want, just as it does not reflect myself.’ There was no sporting argument, but just arguments about religion and skin colour” wrote Forunier to INEOS director Dave Brailsford (INEOS owns Nice) in 2021. He also wrote that he spoke with Galtier a couple of times about this issue and tried to talk him out of it, but coach was persistent in his statements and often mentioned that Muslim players cannot perform well when they are feasting on Ramadan.Galtier: ‘We can’t have so many black and Muslim players in the team’“I organised a meeting with CG on the 31st of March to prepare the outline for the team for the 2022/23 season, and to know which players he didn’t wish to keep for the upcoming season. When I asked him the question, he made me aware of his desire for deep changes to the team, putting forward sporting arguments, but specifying that he wanted to limit as much as possible the number of Muslims in the team, and notably wanted to get rid of Jean-Clair Todibo, Youcef Atal, Hicham Boudaoui, Amine Gouiri, Mario Lemina…” … Bob Ratcliffe was kept up to date on all of the exchanges, oral and written, in real-time and even offered to come and see CG and tell him that he must immediately stop this behaviour, which is contrary to the law and to all of the values which INEOS carries and defends” writes Fournier in an alleged e-mail.When an email was revealed to the public, Galtier, already a PSG coach denied the accusations and even tool legal actions against them, while the prosecutor started his job, which has now culminated with taking the coach and his son into custody. Galtier is set to be fired by the Qatari owners of PSG after a largely underwhelming season in which PSG suffered 10 defeats in 2023, exiting the Champions League, the team’s main objective, in the last 16.##NAJAVA_MECA_7347494##
