Lyon Coach Laurent Blanc Defends PSG’s Galtier Amid Racism Allegations

"Christophe Galtier is a character I’ve known for 30-40 years. I played in the French junior national team with him. Honestly, when we talk to me about a person who is racist, I don’t think so. We’ll see what happens, but he remains my friend," explains Laurent Blanc on the sidelines of Olympique Lyonnais’ 2-1 win over Toulouse in Ligue 1 on Friday. And he adds: "You know, in Paris, nothing is done like elsewhere, I’m well placed to know that. I think it’s a bad story. We’ll see what happens."

This week, the PSG coach was accused of having made racist and Islamophobic remarks when he was in charge at Nice, after the leak of an email. "He came into my office and greeted his son [who is also his agent, editor’s note], who told me ’you can check with my father what I told you’. Once his son had left, I reported to Christophe the discussion I had just had and asked him if all this was true. He then replied that ’yes’ and that I had to take into account the ’reality of the city’; and that indeed, we could not have so many blacks and Muslims in the team," Julien Fournier, former general manager of OGC Nice, recounted in an email addressed to the management of Ineos, the owner of the club.