From assault to adultery ... inside the toxic world of the PSG women’s team
Club are on the brink of Champions League final but are being torn apart as training brawl exposes squad’s divisions
hfrench
It began with a vicious late-night attack by masked men armed with an iron bar on a suburban Paris street, and has since featured tales of adultery involving a former Barcelona player, trainingground bust-ups and the exposing of a toxic culture. Yet, remarkably, the next chapter may well be a Champions League final place.
This is the saga of the Paris Stgermain women’s team and Kheira Hamraoui, their France international midfielder who was the victim of that violent assault on Nov 4. It is a mysterious crime, still subject to a police investigation.
Hamraoui’s legs were badly cut and bruised, but the wounds within last season’s French champions – and the national team – are yet to heal. There was a new twist in the case on Wednesday, when a 25-yearold man was arrested in relation to the attack, and later released without charge. Several media reports claimed the suspect had connections to Aminata Diallo, Hamraoui’s PSG team-mate who had been with her in the car at the time of the attack. Diallo had initially been arrested on Nov 10 in relation to the assault and was held for 36 hours, before being released without charge. She denied any involvement. Diallo has also strenuously denied having any association with the man arrested on Wednesday, and a new statement from her lawyer, Mourad Battikh, called for her name to “stop being abused”.
“The name of Aminata Diallo is once again unjustly associated with this case,” he said. “She formally denies any proximity with the [arrested man]. More broadly, my client denies any direct or indirect involvement in the attack on Kheira Hamraoui. I would like to remind you that Aminata Diallo has so far been completely exonerated in this case. She, more than anyone, calls for the truth to be revealed.”
This story is not the narrative the club would have wanted ahead of the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Lyon today, especially since the build-up to the first leg last weekend was also disrupted. Just 24 hours before the
trip to Lyon, Hamraoui was involved in a training-ground altercation with forward Sandy Baltimore. Sources say that Hamraoui has fallen out with the majority of the squad, including Kadidiatou Diani