six relatives of the footballer in court from Tuesday, return to the facts

Video blackmail, kidnapping at gunpoint, attempted extortion of millions of euros… Six men, including Paul Pogba’s brother, are on trial from Tuesday before the Paris Criminal Court for their participation in a case that shook the world of football.

There will be six sitting on the dock. Three are childhood friends of Paul Pogba, two are acquaintances from the neighborhood where the Pogba grew up in Roissy-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne) and the last is his brother, Mathias, three years his senior. All are accused of having tried by different means to extort 13 million euros from the footballer.

“All this risks being explosive”: a video broadcast on social networks

The affair came to light at the end of August 2022 with a video broadcast on social networks by Mathias Pogba in four languages: French, Italian, English and Spanish. In this video, he promised revelations about his younger brother. “All this risks being explosive,” he declared, without further details. This enigmatic video was followed by another in which the big brother accused Paul of having harassed Kylian Mbappé, his teammate with the Blues.

In a press release published at the end of August, Paul Pogba’s lawyers as well as his agent, Rafaela Pimenta, indicated: “The recent statements of Mathias Pogba (…) add to threats and attempts at extortion by an organized gang against Paul Pogba. The international, star player of Juventus Turin, had actually filed a complaint in Italy in July 2022 before being heard in France a few days later. To investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime, he declared having been “trapped by childhood friends” on the night of March 19 to 20, 2022.

Kidnapping and sequestration by two armed men

These relatives would have kidnapped and sequestered him under the threat of two hooded men armed with assault rifles, to demand 13 million euros from him for “service rendered”, accusing him of not having helped them financially since he had become a professional player. Of the 13 million, he claims to have paid the sum of 100,000 euros.

During his hearings, Paul Pogba also recounted having suffered pressure from these friends at the Blues training center in Clairefontaine, in Manchester where he had a residence and at the training center of the Turin club. Finally, he said he had to pay a bill for 57,227 euros spent by his same acquaintances in the Adidas store on the Champs Élysées.

Objective: to extract 13 million euros

According to a police summary of which AFP was aware, the three childhood friends and acquaintances of Paul Pogba constituted “a criminal team (…) with the aim of extracting 13 million euros from Paul, which had cut off supplies at the start of the year. Those close to the 2018 world champion firmly denied these accusations. All declared during the investigation that they had themselves been victims of the two robbers and had even been attacked by these two men who were never identified.

During the trial which opens on Tuesday, all five will be tried for extortion, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. The sixth defendant, Mathias Pogba, absent the night of the kidnapping, is suspected of having then “committed pressure against his brother Paul and against his family in order to ensure payment of the sum of 13 million euros”. He will be tried for attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy.

His brother believes he was just a “puppet”

Mathias Pogba’s lawyer, Me Mbeko Tabula, clarified that he would only speak at the end of the trial. A few months ago, before the examining magistrate, Mathias considered himself to have been nothing more than a “puppet”. Very moved, he also said he hoped to see his brother again quickly. “I hope that our union will be reconsolidated,” he declared. “The Pogba affair” revealed fraternal relations corrupted by competition and money, but also the difficult relations between professional players and their associates before success.

“Despite everything that happened, they will always have a place in my heart (…) They were like my family,” Paul Pogba declared after a confrontation with his friends in September 2023.