French Football Allegedly Made Secret Decision To Institute Racial Quotas

Laurent Blanc, the France Manager, purportedly argued at a meeting that French clubs are profiling for players who are “large strong and powerful” at the expense of players who are “intelligent” and who share “our culture, our history.” He allegedly contrasted this to the Spanish who were problem free because they “have no blacks.”

French Football released a statement saying Blanc was “outraged” by the story and he “categorically denies that he could have supported selections based on ethnicity or skin color.” Blanc’s most recent French squad contained 15 Black or Muslim players. The FFF national technical director claims the “only problem” was players with dual nationality training in France before playing for another country.

Supposedly, the quotas were meant to be kept quiet and the revelation has led to a government inquiry. The French Republic discounts both race and religion, hence the aversion to headscarves. It’s illegal to even use race for statistics. In modern times France has always been a tolerant country in theory, though “Frenchness” has always had a profound racial undercurrent.

The successful French squads of the late 1990s, winners of the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000, featured numerous Black and Muslim players, such as Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram, Claude Makelele and Patrick Vieira. Blanc himself played for those teams. They were “large, strong and powerful.” They were also quite “intelligent” and seemed to have an adequate respect for French culture and history.

France’s trouble in 2010 had nothing to do with the 14 Black or Muslim players on its squad. It had everything to do with them being coached by an ineffectual dipshit.

[Photo via Getty]