by In May of this year, Christophe Galtier was coaching Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé and celebrating a Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain. On December 15, he will be tried in a French court on criminal charges of racial and religious discrimination, crimes allegedly committed while he was coach of Nice between June 2021 and July 2022, accusations that Galtier denies.
This is real-world criminal justice, not the soft version of football. If he is convicted, Galtier could face up to three years in prison. The stakes are also dizzyingly high in other ways, in a trial that promises a dark night of the soul for French football and France itself, at a time of deeply fractured domestic politics.
An investigation published this week in L’Équipe points out the surprising nature of what will be alleged before the court. Galtier is accused of actively excluding black and Muslim footballers, and of pressuring his players not to fast during Ramadan or risk being eliminated.
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There is evidence in the public domain that he tells his assistant Frédéric Gioria: “Another Muslim, I don’t want him, we’ve had enough” after the signing of Billal Brahimi; calling Nice centre-backs Harold Moukoudi and Mickaël Nadé the “two King Kongs”; and tell the club’s sports director: “Julien, you still don’t understand. “I don’t want more blacks or Arabs.”
Galtier denies all this and will present a series of favorable witnesses to the court. He remains innocent until proven guilty and may still be acquitted of all charges.
But there is a larger note in the details whatever the outcome; one that links Ineos and its sporting director, Sir Dave Brailsford, widely followed as part of Manchester United’s new broom if, as expected, the proposed new investment finally comes to fruition.
At this point it is worth rethinking the timeline of Galtier’s fall from grace. Nice is, of course, a club owned by Ineos. Galtier was appointed manager in June 2021 after a meeting with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and settled in to work under Brailsford’s distant management.
In May 2022, Nice sporting director Julien Fournier sent an email to Brailsford describing in detail the extent of Galtier’s alleged racist and discriminatory behavior. Fournier has since stated that he did this to avoid being accused of covering up criminal conduct later.
Nothing changed on the surface. In July 2022, Galtier left Nice of his own free will to sign for PSG. The matter was not made public until April 2023, when the email sent to Brailsford was leaked to the media.
It created an instant national scandal. The Nice prosecutor opened a criminal case.
In June 2023, Galtier was accused of moral harassment and discrimination based on race and religion. In July 2023 he left PSG and signed for Al-Duhail of the Qatari league where he remains coach.
Contacted by The Guardian, neither Brailsford nor Ineos were willing to comment on the developments involving Galtier and Nice as the court proceedings unfold. A spokesperson noted that Ineos had previously stated that the email to Brailsford was “escalated” and that “appropriate workplace processes were followed”.
It is difficult to understand from the outside what these processes may have been. It is clear that if the email to Brailsford had not been leaked, the allegations that led to a criminal trial would not have been reported outside the club. Ineos and Nice allowed Galtier to walk away with his reputation intact.
L’Équipe has described this situation as “embarrassing” for Ineos and Nice, although its extent will only become evident as the trial progresses.
Manchester United also declined to comment, saying: “It would not be appropriate for us to discuss matters relating to Ineos while their potential investment remains hypothetical.” But for United fans, hit by the departure of a chief executive whose main failure was the clumsy handling of the Mason Greenwood episode, ‘L’Affaire Galtier’ will raise serious questions about the much-vaunted competition from Ineos and Brailsford, and their suitability. . in the management of such a large public sports institution.
Why didn’t Nice or Ineos take accusations of racism by their own manager seriously enough to create even the slightest public commotion? Why didn’t Brailsford report these allegations to the police? Did any of this information appear in the reviews Brailsford is said to have made of the club’s training? Why did it take a leak of the email to Brailsford and almost immediate police intervention for anyone to see the full extent of the problem here?
The details of the accusations surely demanded some kind of escalation. Galtier is accused by his assistant manager of calling Algerian internationals Youcef Atal and Hicham Boudaoui “dirty guys” and saying: “The worst are the Algerians”, statements which Galtier denies having made.
According to L’Équipe, Galtier is accused of having drawn up a list of players he wanted to remove from the club, made up almost entirely of Muslims; of pressuring Jean-Clair Todibo to break his fast during Ramadan and of telling another player that Todibo was a Salafist and extremist; and prompting academy coach Didier Digard to tender his resignation after allegedly expressing his dismay that Digard was Muslim and, as a result, could “indoctrinate” young players.
In his defense, Galtier says he left his office open to give space to those who wanted to pray, and that he allowed Muslims to leave early for Friday prayers if they wished. A statement from his lawyers published in L’Équipe this week says: “Christophe Galtier has made up his mind 10 days before this hearing. He reserves his statements for the court. He is finally waiting for this public and contradictory debate in which he will demonstrate that, evidently, he has never discriminated against or harassed anyone. His entire professional career and his reputation are testament to his impeccable personality.”
France will prepare for Galtier’s trial. For now many other questions remain unanswered. Why did PSG publicly bid farewell to Galtier so warmly, thanking him for his “professionalism and commitment” when his coach was already at that stage facing trial for these charges? Why was he so easily recruited in Qatar by a club whose president is a government minister and member of the royal family?
More parochially, what does all this mean for Ineos, Brailsford and Manchester United? There is no suggestion that Ineos could have known any of this before hiring Galtier, but whatever the outcome of the trial, United’s proposed new football operations arm hired a coach who ended up facing criminal charges for his alleged actions. under the direction of Ineos. Does this sound like the master of detail in action, the model of extreme competition necessary to end a generation adrift?
A recurring obstacle in the Glazer family era, and the vice that Ineos was supposed to eliminate, has been the trend towards low-skilled internal hires. As far as job interviews go, at this point it is difficult to see much convincing evidence in the events on the Côte d’Azur.
