Did Éric Abidal really receive a liver lobe donation from his cousin? In Spain, the investigation continues around this transplant suffered by the former Barça player in April 2012. Ten years later, a report provided to the Barcelona courts would prove the absence of a relationship between Abidal and the said cousin. Information which revives the debate and which should accelerate the investigation.
What happened ?
FC Barcelona player since the summer of 2007, Éric Abidal was operated on for a liver tumor on March 17, 2011, two days after it was detected. A month later, the former Lyonnais played football again but, at the start of 2012, his state of health deteriorated and a transplant proved necessary.
On April 10, 2012, Abidal underwent a liver lobe transplant, donated by Gérard Armand, presented as his cousin. “His father is a brother of my mother”, explained the latter to the Midi Libre in July 2018. Abidal will be able to play again with Barça in April 2013 before concluding his career with a stage at AS Monaco then at Olympiakos Piraeus , in Greece.
He finally said “stop” in December 2014 before starting as a television consultant and then as a manager of FC Barcelona. All in good health since the last operation.
Why is the court investigating?
In the spring of 2017, the police investigated the case of Sandro Rosell, former boss of Barça (2010-2014), suspected of tax evasion and money laundering. During her investigation, she would have discovered possible irregularities around the liver transplant undergone by Éric Abidal and telephone tapping which would prove “the purchase of an illegal liver”.
But the investigation remains secret and ends quickly, in particular due to a lack of collaboration from the French justice system. It was not until July 2018, after Abidal’s return to Barça, that new revelations were made by El Confidencial, a Spanish newspaper. The whole thing provokes a request for the reopening of the file by the Barcelona public prosecutor’s office and multiple reactions.
Abidal, FC Barcelona and the clinic that hosted the operation deny any irregularity. The donor, Gérard Armand, wonders about the honesty of his cousin in the columns of Midi Libre in 2018: “I have just had an ultrasound which confirms (that an organ was removed from him). By dint of reading these stories of trafficking, shenanigans, I wondered if I hadn’t been opened for nothing… They did remove part of my liver. »
Finally, in January 2019, the Spanish courts definitively reopened the investigation alleging the existence of new clues.
What is Eric Abidal risking?
The investigation has been going on in Spain for three years. The main clues in the possession of justice are telephone tapping. In one of them, a former collaborator of Sandro Rosell can be heard saying: “This guy (Abidal) is against us… And we bought him an illegal liver. And we said it was from his cousin! »
But new clues therefore exist, like the latest revelations from El Confidencial: an analysis carried out by the National Institute of Toxicology has been sent to the Barcelona public prosecutor’s office and this would demonstrate the absence of a relationship between Abidal and Gerard Armand. Contacted by us, the latter protested once again: “Eric Abidal is indeed my first cousin, he proclaimed on Tuesday. I’m not going to lie to you, I knew it was going to come to this. From the start, this story has been shady. I thought to myself, the longer this case takes, the weirder it gets. It’s been going on for four years though. There, I worry. And I don’t trust him at all. »
Today, Sandro Rosell and Juan José Castillo, ex-leaders of Barça, remain under investigation for organ trafficking. In the event of a trial, the two men would risk 6 to 12 years in prison. As for Éric Abidal, his role remains to be determined but he could soon be heard again by the courts.
