By David Gold
May 4 – The French Football Federation (FFF) chief community officer, Mohamed Belkacemi, is reportedly the source of the leak which revealed secret plans by senior French football officials to implement a quota restricting the number of black and north African players in the country’s academies.
Belkacemi was in attendance with France national team coach Laurent Blanc when he allegedly discussed the controversial quota plan with other officials.
Le Parisien reported that Belkacemi went before an inquiry which was launched by the FFF in the wake of the reports, which were revealed last week.
French Sports Minister Chantal Jouanno seemed to confirm this when she said “it’s out in the press, so I’m going to have a bit of difficultly contradicting you.”
An investigation was also begun by the Ministry of Sport, which will decide whether legal action is required.
Francois Blaquart, the French Federation Technical Director, was suspended over his role in the affair after he insisted that the plan could help to prevent players with more than one nationality being trained in French academies and then opting to play for another country at international level.
Transcripts of the conversations at the FFF released by French website Mediapart imply that Blanc approved the quota plan, forcing the former Bordeaux coach to defend himself, and Jouanno has leapt to his defence.
“I never heard those words in the mouth of Laurent Blanc,” Jouanno said.
“I talked to him Friday night and Saturday. He was quite shocked and hurt.”
Blanc insisted that the meeting which took place in November, and which the transcripts were from, was to discuss the issue of dual nationality and nothing more.
He is set to go in front of the inquiries this weekend to put over his side of the story.
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