Antipathetic, sure. Racist, maybe. But Galtier is not a criminal

Were he still alive and had trained in France, Nereo Rocco would probably also be in custody. He, from Trieste, had said several times that he preferred to coach players from the north, better than from the north-east, because they are “more dedicated to work”, while the others “forget the first money they need to make sacrifices”. Coach Christophe Galtiernow in charge of Paris Saint-Germain (albeit briefly) and his son were “taken into custody by the judicial police of Nice from 8.45am on Friday”, declared the prosecutor of the city, Xavier Bonhomme, who is investigating the case of “suspected discrimination on the basis of racial and religious beliefs” that would have occurred within the OGC Nice team during the Galtier management, 2021-2022 season. The son was released in the afternoon, the coach’s interrogation lasted longer.

It all starts with the publication by a French journalist, Romain Molina, in a video on YouTube, of an email that the then sporting director of Nice, Joulien Fournier, sent to the managers of Ineos, the company that owns the club. The email described how the coach’s son had complained to Fournier about the presence of too many blacks and Muslims in the team and how “Christophe Galtier then walked into my office and greeted his son, who said ‘you can check with my father what what I told you’. Once his agent/son left, I told Galtier about the conversation I’d just had with him and asked him if that was true. He replied that he was and that ‘I had to take into account the existing reality in the city, and that in fact we couldn’t have that many blacks and Muslims in the team’. He said he went to a restaurant and everyone said the team was full of black people and that didn’t fit the city and what people were asking for.” The revelations had come out in April. Galtier had denied it and distanced himself. Fournier had confirmed everything to the judiciary which had opened an investigation.

At the end of the 1980s, in the pages of L’Equipe, the writer lent to cycling narration Antoine Blondin created the category of the great antipathetics of France to explain how the country had the capacity to hate, in a sincere and widespread way, some personalities of the culture and of sport because they are far from the “average common thought”. The first great antipathetic of France told by Blondin was Louis-Ferdinand Céline, the second Bernard Tapie, first detested by cycling enthusiasts, despite having created the La Vie Claire team (Bernard Hinault with that jersey was the last Frenchman to win the Tour de France – the 110th edition starts on Saturday 1 July), and by the fans of Marseille, a club that had won the championship again after seventeen years.

Christophe Galtier would fit perfectly among France’s great antipathies. He’s a guy who can easily be described as grumpy, he has an annoyed manner and the attitude of someone who doesn’t want to explain anything. With journalists he is at his worst, with fans even more so. He never shied away from criticizing them when they didn’t support the team, more than once he underlined the urgency of “removing the scum of supporters from the stadiums”. The ultras didn’t like it, part of the institutions did. Galtier has always professed his idea of ​​football in which it’s not the great players who make a team win, but the successes are always children of the ideas of the great coaches. And he was one of them. Having made Saint-Étienne a top-level team and winning a championship with Lille was for him the certification of this.

More than once in recent years he had declared that in France, in football, there are too many slackers, that more sticks and less carrots were needed. Many, almost everyone, in the world of football appreciated. More than once he took it out on the night outings of football players, arguing that it takes an iron military discipline to be an athlete. Applause came from everyone. Then he expressed his annoyance for those who thought that whatever God was, was as important as training to win. Again winks and pats on the back. But always with the right distancing for a person who had the reputation of being unpleasant, at times despicable. On three occasions the fans of the opposing teams wrote on a banner: “Galtier racist”. They were removed, the clubs fined.

Were what Fournier reported in the email true, Galtier’s words would be despicable and discriminatory. However, placing him and his son in custody seems excessive.

Especially because personal opinions are one thing, even if cowardly and idiotic, it is another to put them into practice and therefore really discriminate against someone based on skin color and religion. According to what is learned from the club, Galtier would have asked Muslim footballers to eat before matches despite Ramadan, but he has never given up on fielding Muslim players because they are obsequious to Ramadan. Just as he never excluded black or Muslim players in the years of Lille and Saint-Étienne, or when he was at the helm of Paris Saint-Germain as black or Muslim. Galtier can be obnoxious and despicable, but there should be a limit to the provisions of the judiciary and the police in order not to fall into the judiciary and the moral police.