In The AthleticPierre-Emerick Aubameyang talks about the armed robbery he suffered in the last days of his stay in Barcelona.
It was August 28, 2022. Just before signing for Chelsea, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was the victim of a robbery at his home in Barcelona. In an interview given to The Athleticthe 35-year-old Gabonese attacker recounts how this attack traumatized him and upset his children.
“My eldest son came running and said to me: ‘Dad, there are guys in the house’. (…) They entered from outside, where my wife was smoking with my cousin and her little one friend. They took it and came into the house. My wife was screaming. They had a gun,” he recalls.
“It’s always in the back of my mind.”
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang orders his loved ones to hide, but for his part chooses confrontation with a bottle in his hand as a weapon. A fight breaks out. Under the blows of one of the attackers, equipped with American gloves, his jaw fractured. But the beating stops when the family ends up being taken hostage. “At that moment, I couldn’t do anything. If you do something wrong, something might happen to them. (…) If I was alone, no problem. I can deal with it, because mentally, I was prepared for everything in life thanks to my parents. But when you have a wife and children, it’s different.”
Subsequently, the former OM striker regrets not having consulted a psychologist. “I made a mistake,” he said. But above all, it is the mental health of his children that concerns him. “After that, the children told me: ‘Dad, I don’t want to go to school, I’m afraid something will happen there’. For a year, my youngest told me : ‘I can’t sleep alone’. That was a big struggle. His children still refuse to return to this house in Barcelona, and the family is still the owner.
This episode means that security has become a major issue for Aubameyang when choosing the rest of his professional career. Which explains, according to him, his choice to sign last summer for Al-Qadsiah, in Saudi Arabia, where his current record is 7 goals in 13 matches in all competitions.
