A French minister reduced the country’s disgraced World Cup stars to tears as she gave them a dressing down over their tantrums ahead of their final group game on Tuesday.
With the whole of France outraged at the antics of the millionaire footballers in refusing to attend training and threatening to boycott the match against South Africa, Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot said she had told the players they are a “moral disaster”.
“They applauded me and they were crying,” Bachelot said of the encounter at the team camp on Monday night.
A French Football Federation official said many young players were again in tears when they went to coach Raymond Domenech’s room to apologise for the strike that started after Nicolas Anelka was sent home for insulting Domenech.
“I told the players that they are perhaps no longer heros for our children,” Bachelot told reporters.
“It is the dreams of your partners, your friends, your supporters that you have broken. It is the image of France that you have tarnished.”
She went on: “I said to the players that French football was confronting a disaster, not because it had lost a match, but because this disaster is a moral disaster.”
Bachelot said she told the stars that “nothing will be the same again” during what she called “an extremely emotional meeting” when she saw tears in the eyes of the players.
— AFP