Noël La Graët, Zidane's 'enemy': octogenarian, faced with Mbappé and Benzema and investigated for sexual harassment

• Controversial France defends Zidane

The president of the French Football Federation,

, has a long history of controversy and shady affairs.

At the head of the federation for more than a decade (he retires in 2024), his derogatory statements about

, assuring that he would not have picked up the phone from the former soccer player if he had called him to be France coach, are just the The culmination of the history of a character about whom there is everything: clashes with all his stars, outbursts and, most seriously, investigations into sexual and moral harassment of some former employees of the Federation.

In fact, today Tuesday he has to appear in the investigation opened by one of his great enemies, the Minister of Sports,

.

According to the information that the French media have been publishing, Le Graët is accused of sending several SMS to these employees in an inappropriate tone.

They have all requested anonymity, but they have declared to media such as Radio France or So Foot that they have received texts such as the following:

.

Another worker declared that she had received a message for her to go to her house, and that text ended: "Relax, if something happens between us, no one will know."

It is the most difficult thorn to overcome in

.

At 80, he has one left to retire.

He has already warned that he does not plan to leave before 2024 and has even dropped that he could intervene when choosing his successor.

The decision to renew

as coach until 2026 has also caused discomfort within the Federation, as the executive committee had not been previously consulted.

Le Graët has a reputation for being arrogant and for having an explosive character, as the statements about Zidane, probably the best footballer France has ever had, show.

The minister, in a message demanding rectification, does not hide the boredom she has of the character:

she said in a tweet.

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera.AFP

The gratuitous contempt with which he refers to Zidane has not given him much support in the locker room, although the friction comes from before.

For example with the PSG star

, who has come out in defense of the former Real Madrid coach, assuring that "it's France, a legend is not disrespected like that."

His bad relationship is well known, and the PSG star doesn't even bother to hide it.

Everything stems from the fact that Mbappé wants to be able to decide on his image rights when he is with the team, something that the president does not allow.

In fact, Kylian

.

To this we must add a clash when Le Graët revealed, always according to his own version, that the French number 10 had thought of leaving the national team after missing a penalty in the last Euro Cup.

Faced, then, with the great star, but also with another mythical player such as

.

The president referred to the French striker from Madrid, separated by the Federation when the Valbuena scandal broke out, after winning the 2018 World Cup, saying that Karim's stage with the 'bleus' was over and that he saw him out of shape.

The striker's response was forceful.

"Mr. Le Graët, I ask you to forget about me and leave me alone, please. France is world champion and that is the essential, the rest is trifles," Benzema wrote on his Twitter account.

, Le Graët also ruled on the recovery periods from the injury that finally separated her from the call, supporting Deschamps' decision to leave him out of it.

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• Zinedine Zidane

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