While Olympique Lyonnais still have to settle their problem with the DNCG, John Textor’s club may also have to solve a more surprising problem. Dejan Lovren is indeed charged in his country and risks prison.
OL news has moved in recent hours to Zagreb, where Dejan Lovren has just been charged with perjury in a case that dates back to 2017. According to Agence France Presse, the defender Croatian international from Lyon is not the only one to be caught by local justice. Indeed, Luka Modric, who has just extended his one-year contract with Real Madrid, is also charged. The two stars had already been charged in this case. However, just after the 2018 World Cup, where Croatia were unfortunate finalists against France, everything was erased. Five years later, the case comes to light. Lovren and Modric are suspected of having produced false testimony in court during the trial of the former boss of Dinamo Zagreb, who hid financial information from the Croatian tax authorities during the transfer of Lovren to Lyon in 2010 and Modric to Tottenham in 2008.
Lovren and Modric face jail
What a win tonight. Well done boys @OL @OL_English pic.twitter.com/Et3Ayr45XA
— Dejan Lovren (@Dejan06Lovren) May 7, 2023
On paper, this all seems very old and not really worrying. Except that Zdravko Mamic, the leader of Dinamo Zagreb, decided to flee when he had been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for embezzlement to the detriment of the state. Problem for the two footballers, it turns out that in the face of justice, during the trial of Mamic, they would have produced false testimony in favor of the latter. And in Croatia, this offense can send you to prison from 6 months to 5 years. Now charged, the Croatian defender of Olympique Lyonnais will have to take all this seriously, the justice of his country not wanting to miss a second time in this case. Returning to OL in the 2022 transfer window, and rather good this season, Lovren still has two years of contract with the Rhone club.
