On the money and the stars – Leo Klimm in Der Spiegel:

‘Roissy-en-Brie is a banlieue, a suburb, located about 20 kilometers east of Paris. It is a "dangerous place," as Pogba once said of the neighborhood where he grew up. And earlier this year, the Juventus Turin player experienced just how right he had been with that assessment. He was held captive for an entire night at the point of a gun and commanded to turn over 13 million euros. The gang accused of being responsible, which includes Pogba’s own brother, is from the La Renardière quarter, the "Fox’s Den."’

(…)

‘Even as the World Cup in Qatar has managed to produce its own fair share of raised eyebrows in the football world, the criminal case surrounding Paul Pogba’s kidnapping shines the spotlight on a number of French taboos. Many top French soccer professionals grew up in places like Roissy, and some of them continue to maintain childhood friendships that have veered into the criminal world. In recent months, star striker Karim Benzema has joined Pogba in the headlines, having dropped his appeal against the initial verdict in an affair involving a childhood friend. Aminata Diallo, a midfield star for the French women’s national team until recently, was placed in pre-trial custody in September.’

(…)

‘The crimes involve money and envy, violence and extortion, real friends and fake friends. And they testify to a failed French society, one that is fond of celebrating freedom, equality and fraternity when the national team and its recruits from the banlieues are successful, but which does not fulfil promises in real life of equality and social advancement to the brothers, sisters and friends of the football stars.
In 1998, when France won the World Cup for the first time, politicians invoked the myth of Black-Blanc-Beur, Black-White-Arabic, and millions celebrated in the streets as if the ethnically diverse team surrounding global star Zinédine Zidane could heal social divides.’

(…)

‘"The French like watching soccer. Nevertheless, parents from the middle and upper classes don’t sign their children up to play. People are afraid their children will be treated poorly," says Julien Bertrand, a sociologist at the University of Grenoble. Bertrand has spent years conducting research into the development of the country’s sporting elite. "Higher income families prefer to choose sports for their children like swimming. Or sports they believe convey higher values, like judo, for example." The French mainstream likes football, but they prefer to enjoy it from a safe social distance.
As a result, it is frequently the children of African immigrants who end up finding success in the multimillion-euro business of football. "The rise that is denied to their friends is one they experience exponentially, in a certain sense," says Bertrand. "It demands from them a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, they remain tied to the world into which they were born, but on the other, they are catapulted into a world characterized by completely different living standards and lifestyles."
This discrepancy has an effect back home in the precarious milieus from which they come. It produces envy and leads to family and friends developing certain expectations, or even demands, of the football superstars. "Frequently, money is demanded from them as a sign of solidarity. The players fear nothing so much as the accusation that they have forgotten where they come from," says Bertrand.
It can be a slippery slope, however, from those demands for solidarity to extortion. The boundaries are permeable. As was the case for Pogba.’

(…)

‘Pogba is also thought to have paid money to ensure that his less-skilled older brother Mathias could play for the lower league team Tours FC.

On March 19, 2022, Paul Pogba again returned to the Fox’s Den to visit his old friends. But this time, they weren’t just holding out their hands. They had different plans. They guided their famous friend into a darkened apartment they had rented not far from Roissy. Among the group was also a man named Roushdane K., who was reportedly involved in a hostage-taking incident in 2017, according to the French media.
In the Airbnb apartment, Pogba was forced to turn off his mobile phone, as he would later tell the police. After a couple of hours, two masked men entered the room. Holding rifles, they demanded 13 million euros: 3 million in cash and another 10 million by transfer to an account in Dubai. The sum amounted to 1 million for each year of Pogba’s professional career, money that the extortionists claimed he owed them for protection. Early the next morning, they let him go. The extortionists had in their possession a USB stick allegedly storing content they could use against Pogba: Proof that the player had apparently hired an African witch doctor to put a curse on Kylian Mbappé, his teammate on the French national side.’

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‘"I have often seen young players who are friends with small-time gangsters." The pattern is frequently the same, he says, with younger players initially only being sponged off for a couple thousand euros. "With time, the sums become larger and the intimidation more threatening," Guerra says. One of his clients, whose name he declines to provide, initially fed 10 people from his salary. Later, Guerra says, it rose to 500 people, including an entire village in Africa. Of the 25 million euros he says the player earned during his career, nothing is left.’

(…)

‘In Bron, young Karim Benzema once lived in the same building as Karim Z. That friend entangled the football star in the so-called sex-tape affair in 2015. Benzema allowed himself to be drawn into a plot to extort a fellow national team player with a stolen private porn film. For his role in the scandal, Benzema was sentenced to a year of probation. In reading out the verdict, the judge emphasized Benzema’s "unconditional friendship" to Karim Z.
But Benzema was lucky. As long as he plays well, the French are more than happy to overlook such transgressions. Indeed, even before his conviction was handed down, his temporary exclusion from the national team had been lifted. This autumn, he was honored in France for receiving the Ballon d’Or, world football’s top individual honor, and a huge mural of him was unveiled on the side of a building back in Bron.’

(…)

‘Monsieur Doudy believes that his son has what it takes to become a professional. "But there is also something else in life," he says. He is happy, he says, that Nolan is also a diligent student. He refuses to be discouraged by the fact that France is particularly bad at helping children from disadvantaged swaths of society. In the PISA educational assessment tests, the country is among those in which school achievement is primarily dependent on the education level of the student’s parents. For many a banlieue family, a son who shows a bit of talent on the pitch is their best chance at social advancement.
Nolan Doudy’s family is trying to escape the banlieue. They moved out of the problematic quarter as soon as an opportunity presented itself, and are now living in a town near Roissy. Doing without football, to be sure, isn’t an option. "But it is important to us," says Monsieur Daudy, "that the children grow up in a good area."
An area that won’t continue to present a danger decades down the road.’

Read the article here.

Interesting that most players on the German national team have a middleclass background, whereas in France the banlieue is a common demeanor.
Soccer as the way upward, as the most feasible way upward.

Extortion is apparently quite common.
Think of the player who fed 500 people with his salary.

It must be hard if you have this background, but even with a solid middleclass background, to say no smalltime gangsters when you are 18 and suddenly already a millionaire or multimillionaire.

And if you are really successful most transgressions will be overlooked.

It makes sense that in the Netherlands quite a few successful players turned to God.
The choice between smalltime gangsters and God is tough, but sometimes God seems to be the more reliable option.