The coach of the French football team Didier Deschamps on Wednesday deemed “inadmissible and intolerable” the attitude of Kurt Zouma, a video of which showing him hitting his cat is a scandal. “I was very surprised from Kurt. This is something that is inadmissible, intolerable and of an obviously nameless cruelty. I’m sure he became aware of it but these images are shocking and unbearable,” said Deschamps, who was speaking on France 3 following the Nice-Marseille French Cup match.
The manager has not explicitly said whether or not he will continue to call on the West Ham defender (11 caps) for the next matches of the Blues. “I’m not a prosecutor. I am here to make selections on different criteria. It might have happened to me when players might have made mistakes not to select them for a while, so I will not change my way of doing things for the next list”.
Deschamps had notably stopped retaining Karim Benzema due to the striker’s involvement in the affair of the sextape of Mathieu Valbuena, before recalling him in May 2021 before the Euro. France will play its next match, a friendly, on March 25 in Marseille once morest Ivory Coast.
Unanimous convictions
The controversy gained momentum on Wednesday in England: almost 200,000 people demanded lawsuits, Zouma’s cats were taken away from him and Adidas broke its contract with him. His club West Ham handed him the “heaviest possible” fine. Such a sanction usually corresponds to a two-week salary withdrawal, or regarding 300,000 euros in his case.
Asked by Le Parisien, Noël Le Graët, the president of the FFF, sent us the following statement on Wednesday followingnoon: “This is an obviously shocking act of abuse. He was whistled by the public yesterday (Tuesday night) during his match once morest Watford and we can understand the emotion aroused. This gratuitous act of violence, stupid and nasty, seems all the more amazing because I have never heard of Kurt Zouma in trouble. On the contrary, he is a boy known for being respectful, positive. I do, however, note his apology; I hope he learns the right lesson from it and I believe he does. »
