A one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros were requested Friday before the Nice criminal court against Christophe Galtier, prosecuted for discrimination and harassment, mainly against Muslim players, when he was coach of OGC Nice, the 2021-2022 season. Galtier “clearly sought to reduce the number of blacks and Muslims in the team” by “instrumentalizing Ramadan”, insisted the Nice public prosecutor, Damien Martinelli, in his indictment, evoking the “obsessive” dimension taken by this month of fasting for the former coach of Paris SG, now at the head of the Qatari club Al-Duhail.
“For a professional club, Ramadan is a given. For Christophe Galtier, it’s a problem,” he added. And the fact that sometimes the Nice coach has fielded players observing the fast in matches “is a false subject: To hinder is to make the activity more difficult. To hinder is to say to the player: ‘if you don’t eat “Don’t, you don’t play. When we are in this blackmail, we are in obstruction, even if the obstruction has not succeeded and the player continues to fast,” the prosecutor explained.
“A background of ordinary racism”
Damien Martinelli also mentioned “a background of ordinary racism on which Christophe Galtier is not entirely lucid”, asking the court to imagine whether the comments and facts reported would be acceptable outside the world of football: “I “I did not perceive any development, no awareness, no questioning”, denounced the prosecutor. Opening Monday morning, the trial continued into the evening with defense pleadings.
Throughout the day, the audience remained “word against word”, Galtier vehemently rejecting certain remarks attributed to him, in particular by Julien Fournier, then general manager of the Aiglons, or explaining that others had been distorted or incorrectly interpreted. Among the civil parties, OGC Nice requested nothing, the Professional Football League requested a symbolic euro and Licra 5,000 euros in damages for its educational and pedagogical work.