A French minister reduced the country’s disgraced World Cup stars to tears as she gave them a dressing down over their tantrums ahead of their final group game yesterday.
With the whole of France outraged at the antics of the millionaire players in refusing to train and threatening to boycott the match against South Africa, French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot said she had told the players they are a “moral disaster.”
“They applauded me and they were crying,” Bachelot said of the encounter at the team camp on Monday night.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A French Football Federation (FFF) official, Henri Monteil, said many young players were again in tears when they went to coach Raymond Domenech’s room to apologize for the strike that started after Nicolas Anelka was sent home for insulting Domenech.
“I told the players that they are perhaps no longer heroes for our children,” Bachelot told reporters. “It is the dreams of your partners, your friends, your supporters that you have broken. It is the image of France that you have tarnished. I said to the players that French football was confronting a disaster, not because it had lost a match, but because this disaster is a moral disaster.”
Bachelot said she told the stars that “nothing will be the same again” during what she called “an extremely emotional meeting” when she saw tears in the eyes of the players.
France’s World Cup campaign has been in disarray since the 2-0 defeat to Mexico. Anelka was replaced at halftime after his slanging match with Domenech and was later expelled from the team camp.
REFUSING TO TRAIN
The players refused to train on Sunday and Domenech said later that it was possible some might boycott yesterday’s game against South Africa, which the team needed to win handsomely to have any hope of reaching the second round.
Bachelot said she had spoken to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon before delivering her dressing down. She said measures would be taken to reform the FFF after the World Cup fiasco.
She vowed to continue “the combat for the financial moralization of sport” and to improve the game’s professional conduct. She said that any player who did not agree to a new charter would not be selected for France.
Amidst bitter recriminations over the player protests, Monteil said that the ringleaders were finished in the French squad.
“Anyway, the three or four leaders are players on the decline, who will never play again in the World Cup,” Monteil was quoted as saying by the Charente Libre newspaper.
“Who are they? I don’t know ... [William] Gallas, [Eric] Abidal, maybe [Thierry] Henry, who is friends with Anelka,” he added.
Domenech made it clear on Monday that he backed the FFF’s decision to expel Anelka and attacked the “imbecility” of the squad for boycotting training on Sunday.
“The sanction was absolutely justified and I fully support the Federation’s decision [to send Anelka home],” Domenech said. “Nobody can allow himself to behave that way.”
HARSH WORDS
The coach had harsh words to denounce the players’ decision not to train.
“It was an aberration, an imbecility, a stupidity with no name,” he said.
The French antics have led to angry protests at home, with sponsors withdrawing and some towns even taking down giant screens put up to watch the national team’s World Cup games.
French National Assembly Vice President Marc Laffineur yesterday demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the “humiliation” of the country inflicted by the players.
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