Belgian Footballer Sofiane Kiyine Speaks Out on Dramatic Car Crash, Vows Sobriety

At the wheel of his Mercedes Class A on March 30, Sofiane Kiyine entered a roundabout at high speed near the Louis Melin sports hall in Flémalle. The vehicle hit a curb, projecting itself several tens of meters into the air before crossing the metal facade of the sports hall. Two months after this spectacular accident, the 26-year-old professional footballer, who is preparing to resume training on Monday, has decided to break the silence.

"When I left a restaurant, I got back on the road to go home... Yes, I had two gin and tonics, maybe three, I don’t really know. But not more, because I only consume very little alcohol. As a professional footballer, I have a lifestyle to respect. And I stick to it with a very small slip-up from time to time. But no more, I repeat. [...] I received an education with values and I see that what happened has affected my father. Just like my mom and my two sisters. I didn’t want all this for them. I really didn’t want it," said Sofiane Kiyine in an interview with the newspaper Le Soir.

The OH Louvain player claims he was not "drunk, nor under the influence of drugs and a medication like Valium". He confesses to having felt "hot flashes" at the wheel. "The three days before, I had fasted. We were in the middle of Ramadan... For a reason that even the doctors cannot explain precisely after examinations, I am having a beginning of malaise. But impossible to pull over along the quays. Suddenly, without me being able to suspect the sequel, it’s a blackout. When I wake up, I’m in a hospital room, under sedation. I don’t remember anything," says the Belgian-Moroccan.

Sofiane Kiyine was able to see the images of the accident. "My parents didn’t want me to see them, but two weeks after the accident, I had to put images on what I had the impression of not having experienced. I was stunned. Speechless..." confided the player who requested the psychological assistance of his club to overcome this ordeal. "I had to regain self-confidence, I needed to free myself from my anxieties of maybe having failed to kill people," he says, thanking his coach Marc Brys and his teammates for their "understanding" and their "humanity".

"I had the second lumbar vertebra broken, a fracture under the eye socket and eight stitches due to a cut on the heel. It was serious, but the vital process was never engaged," assures Sofiane, who intends to express his "empathy" to the basketball players of the Alliance Flémalle. "I have to talk to them, and show, through simple things like buying equipment for their club, that I am not insensitive to what they have been through," announced the Belgian-Moroccan, who hopes to be "cleared" by justice. But he promises from now on: "Alcohol, I no longer touch it! Enough!"