At the origin of the revelations which led to the recent indictment of Christophe Galtier, Julien Fournier came out of his silence on Tuesday.
Under the influence of an investigation opened last spring for alleged racist remarks, Christophe Galtier will appear on December 15 before the Nice Criminal Court and will then have to answer ” Heads of moral harassment and discrimination on the grounds of membership or non-membership, real or supposed, of an ethnic group, a nation, an alleged race or a determined religion. »
At the origin of this procedure, the revelations of Julien Fournier, former director of football for OGC Nice, at the time of the collaboration between the two men at the Gym, during the 2021-2022 season. An email sent by the latter to his management – ​​Ineos in this case – leaked and triggered the affair. To the great displeasure of Julien Fournier if we are to believe his comments reported by Nice-Matin this Tuesday. ” I didn’t see anything happen, I was with family abroad, disconnected from the news. Contrary to what people may have thought, and this is normal, I am absolutely not at the origin of this leak which I find disgusting in form and timing. Sportingly, it was a pivotal period for the OGCN, the day before a quarter-final of the European Cup, against Basel. I was sorry for the club, the players, Didier (Digard, editor’s note), the staff… »
Among the Aiglons, the media coverage of this affair had the effect of a bomb indeed. Between the searches and the hearings of the different components of the club, the Niçois lost the thread of their season and literally plunged. Christophe Galtier, he has always denied these allegations en bloc, filing a complaint for defamation against Julien Fournier in particular last April. The former PSG coach faces up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
“A way to protect me”
” Some people at the club, who knew about everything that had happened, criticized me for covering up this stuff.is justified today by Julien Fournier. In a private setting, I sent this email to a single person (Dave Brailsford, director of the sports branch of the Ineos group, editor’s note) and wrote down everything he already knew. It was a way of protecting myself and avoiding being accused, wrongly, of having put the handkerchief on all that. »
Today without a club, the former Riviera leader has one regret: that of having opened the door to Christophe Galtier in Nice. ” Ten Hag was my first choice before Christophe Galtier. We made four joint appointments, we went quite far in our exchanges. He’s a good person. The day he says no to me, I’m on a date with Christophe, who is hallucinating that Ten Hag is on the shortlist. So, I put pressure on him to give us his agreement within 24 hours. I tell him that it is my priority in front of Ten Hag. He didn’t know that Ten Hag had said no to me. If Ten Hag had said yes to me, the story wouldn’t have been the same… »
