an investigation began following a report of “extortion” by the players’ association

Will French professional football clubs soon be visited by police officers from the Personal Crime Suppression Brigade (BRDP)? This was confirmed by the prosecutor’s office in Paris Worldon Tuesday 30 April, after contacting the BRDP, as part of a preliminary investigation, following a report issued in January by the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP), the players’ union.

As World disclosed, this report had been submitted to the prosecution by the UNFP against X for alleged acts of “extortion”, “attempted extortion”, “moral harassment” and “complicity in these crimes”.

The union therefore intended to denounce the abuses of the “attic” before the courts, a practice largely maintained by French clubs, which consists of putting players who the employer considers “undesirable” on the shelf for various reasons (denial of extension or extension). transferred before the end of their contract) and sidelined from the professional squad during the transfer window, the transfer period.

Barred from the club’s day-to-day life, the affected player – like star Kylian Mbappé, during his standoff, around his contract, with the leaders of Paris-Saint-Germain in the summer of 2023 – could be denied access to the first-team locker. rooms, are excluded from the professional group both in training and in matches, no longer have access to the same care (medicine or physiotherapy service) and find themselves excluded from club communication on the Internet or in advertising campaigns.

Around fifty victims

This criminal procedure should in all probability be linked to the preliminary investigation, also entrusted to the BRDP, and opened in March by the prosecutor’s office in Paris for “moral harassment” and “discrimination”, according to the report of the president of the association “The workers” of living together”, and also condemns the practice of the “loft”.

Contacted, UNFP lawyers Julia Minkowski and Léon del Forno, from the law firm Temime, did not want to comment at this stage of the proceedings. ” Blackmail is influence for the clubs. There is a moral limitation and an economic limitation, UNFP advocates observed in January. The forty or so professional clubs [français] form a very concentrated ecosystem, and agree to impose these practices that enable extortion. “We are disappointed to have had to go down this punitive path because we were unable to move forward thanks to social dialogue”apologizes for his part David Terrier, the vice-president of the UNFP.

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