A hearing into allegations of racism, levelled at Christophe Galtier, is underway in Nice, with the former Paris Saint-Germain and OGC Nice manager describing allegations as “completely false.”
Galtier has been charged by the French authorities with moral harassment and ethnic, racial or religious discrimination, which would entail a three-year prison sentence and a €45,000 fine. The manager, now managing Qatari side Al-Duhail, has repeatedly denied the allegations, which surfaced after a leaked email from former colleague and Nice sporting director Julien Fournier was made public. The transcript of the leaked email can be read here.
The French manager’s lawyers argued on Friday morning that the proceedings should be nullified, and described the case as “based on lies” and “hot air, corridor whispers and rumours.” It was his lawyer, Sébastien Schapira, who spoke on his behalf for much of Friday morning’s session.
Galtier has now publically stated his version of events, at the bar, denying the allegations, whilst also denouncing those that brought them against him. “If I made these comments, they would be racist and discriminatory […] these comments, I didn’t make them,” he said.
Galtier says his comments on Ramadan have been ‘deformed’
As reported by L’Équipe prior to Friday’s hearing, Frédéric Gioria, Galtier’s assistant coach whilst at Nice, is at the heart of the accusations.
Many of the elements of the case, including Galtier’s criticism of Algerians’ handling of Ramadan and the derogatory remarks towards Muslims and black people, were corroborated by Gioria during the police’s inquest. Galtier has described Gioria as “the most racist person that [he has] met in football” in his contestation of the version of events, adding that “his words are false, deformed.”
Galtier even accuses Gioria of “sending him into a trap and into a wall” by stating that the management of Ramadan, a year earlier, when Galtier wasn’t at OGC Nice, was dysfunctional. This led Galtier to anticipate the difficulties during the 2022/23 season, says the former Aiglon manager. This in turn led to meetings with the players, including Jean-Clair Todibo, who is at the centre of the allegations, about how best to handle the period of Ramadan.
The former OGC Nice manager says that he did indeed have meetings with his players about how to best handle the period “My comments have been deformed. What I experienced, is that when you tackle a subject like fasting on the day of the match, it is difficult to make them understand the interest in not doing it. The management of fasting the day of a match is something that takes up a lot of energy amongst us managers: we have to take care of health, and performance too,” said Galtier in reference to the management of Youcef Atal’s and Hicham Bouadoui’s fasting in particular.
Galtier confirms having made ‘King Kong’ comments but ‘not in a racist way’
He goes on to state that he did not force players to not fast, pointing out that Todibo and Hicham Bouadaoui both did so on the days of matches and with both players going on to play the matches in question during that period.
Other employees at OGC Nice also provided testimony in the run-up to the hearing. One of those people was OGC Nice video analyst Hachim Ali Mbaé. He alleges that Galtier made a racist remark during a match against AS Saint-Étienne in 2021. The former Paris Saint-Germain manager reportedly referred to ASSE’s pair of centre-backs, Harold Moukoudi and Mickaël Nadé as “two King Kongs.”
Galtier has responded to this. “I used this term – King Kong. King Kong is [about] strength and power. There is no connotation beyond strength and power With lots of humility, I can say that the young Nadé in 2017, at Saint-Etienne, if it was ever right to speak about someone’s strength… I had to use this term. When we played against FC Nantes, in the final of the Coupe de France, I said the same thing about Nicolas Pallois. In hindsight, it was jerky. If it was, I apologise. Yes, I used it (the term) but not in a racist way,” said Galtier.
