The verdict is in: six years in prison for Eric Olhats, former influential recruiter and mentor of Antoine Griezmann, found guilty of sexual assault on six young footballers. For years, the educator took advantage of his position within Aviron Bayonnais to impose touching and inappropriate acts on minors he was supposed to train. In court, he denied everything, speaking of “fusional relationships” and a simple “question of interpretation“. However, the facts, spread over several decades, were known, at least in part. And one man, within the club itself, chose to remain silent.
The guilty silence of a Bayonne leader
This man is a former manager of the Basque club. The hearing revealed that he had been made aware of Eric Olhats’ actions at least a year before an anonymous letter, in 2015, alerted the authorities. He was aware of a particularly disturbing episode: during a tournament, Olhats allegedly joined an eleven-year-old child in his bed to force him to touch him. Informed of this fact in 2014, this manager took no official action, leaving the alleged predator to continue his activities in contact with children, without hindrance.
Olhats, a legal past although known
This silence is all the more damning given that Eric Olhats’ legal past was already fraught. The man was first convicted in 1991 for indecent assault on a minor. In 2010, while at Real Sociedad, he was again convicted of corruption of a minor. The Spanish club initially dismissed him, before making the decision to reinstate him. This leniency questions the complacency of an environment which preferred to preserve the interests of a “kingmaker” rather than protecting the integrity of young players.
Eric Olhats, the unpunished predator. Behind the “genius maker” hid an aggressor, protected by the guilty silence of those around him and the bankruptcy of a system.
The failure of protection mechanisms
Bankruptcy does not stop at a few individuals. It’s a whole protection system that didn’t work. As early as 2001, the Bayonne police station had been contacted for acts of sexual assault concerning a minor from Aviron Bayonnais, without this leading to strong internal measures. The club let Olhats serve for more than a decade (1992-2003) as technical manager, supervising hundreds of young people, despite warning signs. How was no internal investigation carried out?
Justice versus the law of silence
Eric Olhats’ trial brought justice to the victims, who had to face the inflexible denial of their attacker. But it raises a deeper and more disturbing question: that of the responsibility of those who, through their silence, inaction or complacency, allowed these abuses to continue for decades. The condemnation of a man, however necessary it may be, should not erase the collective bankruptcy and the law of silence which has reigned for too long.
