It’s a chilling story. William Vainqueur, former midfielder for Olympique de Marseille and FC Nantes, found himself affiliated with one of the biggest child crime cases in the history of French football. For good reason, younger he was spotted by FC Nantes recruiter, Ahmed Gueninèche, sentenced to 18 years of criminal imprisonment for rape and sexual assault on a minor in 2022. If the 35-year-old player passed through the drops at time, he discovered with fear the true nature of the man he considered his mentor.
“When she (the commissioner) revealed everything to me, I was taken aback, it was a real shock. She was the one who explained to me that he used to use my name to achieve his ends with children. I was so far from suspecting all this. My first daughter, when she was born, I put her in Ahmed’s arms…”, remembers the former Nantes resident in L’Équipe’s long investigation into the Gueninèche affair.
The former recruiter of the Canaries effectively used the case of William Vainqueur, a professional after having been unearthed by him, to lure his next victims in search of glory in the world of football. A data which was initially perceived by the investigators, as a potential complicity of the former French international hopeful, but this was not the case. Eager to do his part of the job, the former AS Roma man agreed to testify at the trial. “I felt indebted to all the victims. At the trial, it hit me in the face: among them, I recognized a guy I had met during a tournament. A player that I remembered very well, who had a strong character. To imagine that even a person like him could have been abused by Ahmed… At the end of the trial, I went to see him and I told him: frankly, brother, I’m so sorry,” explained Vainqueur, still in shock, even a few years later.
