six relatives of the footballer sent to trial, including his brother Mathias – Libération

The affair had turned the football world upside down in 2022 and raised a wedge on the sordid entourages of certain football stars. This Tuesday, September 10, justice ordered the trial of six relatives of footballer Paul Pogba, including that of his brother Mathias. Five men, namely three childhood friends and two old acquaintances from the neighborhood where the Pogba grew up, in Roissy-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne), are suspected of having organized a meeting in March 2022 to force the football player to help them financially, in the name of their friendship. On this occasion, the 2018 world champion was kidnapped and robbed by two men who demanded 13 million euros from him.

In their order, the two judges consider that it “was not, as some of those indicted were able to maintain, a simple friendly meeting, but rather facts falling under criminal law».

Mathias, absent that night, discovered the kidnapping afterwards. For his part, he is suspected of having “committed pressure against his brother and his family in order to ensure payment of the sum of 13 million euros“. During the summer of 2022, he published several videos accusing his younger brother of having them “abandoned” and for having tried to “marabout” his teammate in the selection Kylian Mbappé.

During the investigation, Mathias said he was afraid for his safety and that of his loved ones, then told the judges last January that he had been manipulated by the other suspects.

“Calling themselves victims”

If the said sum was never transferred, the judges identified money remittances made by Paul Pogba to the five relatives, for a total amount estimated at nearly 250,000 euros.

The indictees developed “a common positione”, according to the judges, in “claiming to be victims themselves“. They would have suffered “pressure and attacks» of two armed men designated as sponsors but who have never been identified.

The five men will be tried mainly for extortion, false imprisonment and criminal conspiracy. One of them is in pre-trial detention. Mathias will, for his part, be tried for attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy. For the sake of “good administration of justice”, and with “the agreement of the civil party», the Paris public prosecutor’s office and the investigating judges reclassified the acts initially considered as criminal as misdemeanors. When contacted, the defendants’ lawyers did not react immediately.

On a sporting level, Paul Pogba has accumulated disappointments in recent years. Above all, in September 2023, he was suspended for four years for doping. Now aged 31, one of the most talented players on the French team, however, assures us that he does not intend to retire and hopes to play again after his suspension.