The coach of the France team had lodged a defamation complaint against his former teammate with the Blues for comments made in 2016 in the British daily The Guardian.
There may ultimately be no trial between Didier Deschamps and Eric Cantona. The justice declared null, for procedural reasons, the complaint for defamation of the coach of the Blues against his former teammate. Deschamps accused Cantona of having defamed him in an interview with the British daily The Guardian, published May 26, 2016. At the heart of the matter, the non-selections of Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa in the group of 23 Blues for Euro 2016 two weeks earlier. “Deschamps has a name that sounds very French. It is perhaps the only one in France to have such a French name. No one has ever mingled with anyone in their family. Like Mormons in America», Declared Eric Cantona. “One thing is certain, Benzema, (dismissed from the Blues because of his indictment in the sex-tape affair) and Hatem Ben Arfa (selected only among the reservists) are the two best players in France and they do not will not play the Euro. What is also certain is that their origins are North African. So yes, the debate is open“, Added the former glory of Manchester United. For these comments, Didier Deschamps claimed 100,000 euros in damages. Amount that he intended to donate in full to Operation Yellow Pieces if he succeeds.
Media storm
A few days after Cantona’s flamethrower release, Karim Benzema in turn attacked Didier Deschamps by declaring to the Spanish newspaper Marca that this one had “yielded to pressure from a racist part of France“By removing the Blues for the Euro. On June 3, 2016, the word “racistWas tagged on the wall of the Deschamps couple’s residence in Concarneau. The straw for the 98 world champion who decided to file a complaint against Eric Cantona, trigger, according to him, of this media storm from which he did not come out unscathed. “He did not accept being attacked as a man. He makes it a matter of honor, we whispered in the entourage of the coach on February 28 after the postponement of the hearing at the joint request of the representatives of the two parties in the context of the lawyers’ strike.
