Marseille (AFP)
The former player and captain of Olympique de Marseille, Mamadou Niang, has joined the candidate of La République en Marche (LREM), Yvon Berland, for the municipal elections in Marseille, the latter announced in a press release on Wednesday.
The current athletic director of Athlético Marseille (N3), 40, will be a candidate in the 15th and 16th arrondissements, sector of the north of the city whose list will be led by the deputy LREM Saïd Ahamada.
"Very attached to Marseille, I will transform tomorrow the city of which I was so proud to wear the colors yesterday," said in this press release the former Olympian striker, with whom OM won his last championship title. France, in 2010.
Former Senegalese international with the Teranga Lions, Niang, ex-idol of OM, had scored 100 goals in the Marseille jersey in five seasons, including 71 in the league. Niang had also worn the jerseys of Fenerbahçe and Besiktas in Turkey, of Al Sadd in Qatar, and of Troyes, Metz, Strasbourg and Arles-Avignon (L2).
Mamadou Niang is not the first sportsman involved in municipal in Marseille. Former French handball international Jackson Richardson is on the list of Senator Bruno Gilles, a dissident candidate for the Republicans.
The LR candidate, Martine Vassal, also announced in December that she had the support of Manuel Amoros, also a former OM player and ex-international in the 90s.
In Marseille, there are many candidates to succeed the outgoing mayor LR Jean-Claude Gaudin, who chose not to stand for reign after having reigned for a quarter of a century.
Besides the former president of the University of Aix-Marseille Yvon Berland, supported by LREM, the main candidates are Martine Vassal, invested by LR, the dissident LR Bruno Gilles, the senator RN Stéphane Ravier, the senator Samia Ghali, ex-PS, Sébastien Barles for EELV and the ecologist Michèle Rubirola at the head of a union list from the left.
© 2020 AFP