Already summoned to the French team to compete in Euro 2024, Warren Zaire-Emery and Bradley Barcola were included in Thierry Henry’s pre-list for the Paris 2024 Olympics. But as this had already filtered, PSG will put its veto.
Thierry Henry explained this well on Monday after announcing his pre-list of 25 players for the Paris 2024 Olympics (July 24-August 9). This is a provisional list which will evolve between now and July 3, the date on which he must communicate his final list of 22 players (18 + 4 reserves) to the IOC. The coach of the French Olympic team clarified that he had already received several refusals from foreign clubs, but not yet from French clubs, with whom a meeting took place on December 15.
The French clubs had expressed their disagreement regarding the start date of preparation for the Olympics, and the FFF had agreed to postpone it by a week to offer more vacation to the players at the end of their club season. Having officially not yet received a negative response from French clubs, Thierry Henry therefore decided to summon Warren Zaire-Emery and Bradley Barcola on Monday in his pre-list for the Olympics.
But as Radio France revealed last week, L’Equipe confirms this Tuesday that PSG has decided not to release its two young French players. Lille, which will play in the third qualifying round of the Champions League in August, has already contacted Thierry Henry in recent hours to explain to him that it would not release Lucas Chevalier, Bafodé Diakité and Leny Yoro (whose future club will also have its say).
Like Lille, PSG vetoes Zaire-Emery and Barcola
PSG will not play qualifying rounds this summer, but believes that it must preserve the integrity of Zaire-Emery and Barcola, who will therefore play Euro 2024 with the France A team (potentially until July 14) before starting a very long season with PSG, who will play a new look Champions League in 2024/2025 with more matches (8 in groups instead of 6 before), as well as a World Cup clubs in the summer of 2025 in the United States.
According to L’Equipe, PSG will contact Thierry Henry shortly, once it has received the official invitations from Barcola and Zaire-Emery for the Olympic selection preparation course. A course which will begin on Sunday June 16, the day before the first match of the France A team at Euro 2024…
