By his mid-teens he's such a good footballer that England U-16s are considering picking him and the FA is contemplating giving him a place in its elite training academy (this is the future, see, and England has such a thing). His father is Japanese, his mother is German. To pit one nation against others, one has to determine who should represent a given nation and in increasingly diverse societies that is increasingly complex.Ĭonsider this: a boy called, say, Marmaduke, is born in London. The second issue that Blanc and the Fédération Française de Football officials discussed, which was jarringly muddled with the first issue, is more interesting and also more difficult to resolve – not just for France but for all countries competing in international sport. Diarra acclaimed Blanc for his open-mindedness, pointing out that when he was manager of Bordeaux he amended training schedules to enable Muslim players to observe Ramadan. Indeed, one of the few players who has spoken publicly on the controversy is Alou Diarra, a black man and midfielder whom Blanc signed for Bordeaux and appointed captain of France. Surveys and interviews suggest most people give him the benefit of the doubt, which seems reasonable as he has never previously been associated with bigotry and all visible actions in his playing and managerial career suggest race has played no part in his decisions. Blanc, who has since admitted that he spoke maladroitly (he would surely have chosen his words more carefully if he'd known his comments were going to be published), professes to be "outraged" at this interpretation. God knows that in the training centres and football schools there are loads of them."Īlthough Blanc had stressed earlier in the conversation that a person's race was of no concern to him and that it would "suit me fine" to field a France team consisting entirely of black players if the best players happened to be black, the 'prototype' statement has been the focus of much of the furore, with many complaining that it could be construed as an endorsement of the cobwebbed racist notion that, basically, black people are physically superior but mentally inferior. "You have the impression that they really train the same prototype of players: big, strong, powerful … What is there that is currently big, strong, powerful? The blacks. He claimed that these youngsters tended to be black. In the leaked meeting he reiterated this philosophy and regretted that French academies seem to be populated primarily by youngsters chosen for their athletic prowess more than their football flair. Since taking over as manager of Les Bleus last August Blanc has advocated concentrating on cultivating technique and intelligence rather than power and speed. One year out from a presidential election, the debate has become heavily politicised. But debate rages over the legitimacy or otherwise of the answers that they reportedly proposed, and the assumptions that may have underpinned them. The issues that he and other members of French football's top brass discussed at a meeting last November, whose contents were leaked by Mohammed Belkacemi and published last week, were ones that he and others had addressed in public many times before: what should the country's football authorities teach young players? And which young players should they teach? Both questions are obviously legitimate. The former defender's only other professional coaching experience came at Bordeaux, where he was in charge from 2007 to 2010 and led the club to the league title in 2009.Ĭurrent boss Carlo Ancelotti, a target for Spanish giants Real Madrid, said in May that he wanted to leave the French champions after 18 months at the helm.įollowing Ancelotti's plea to leave, PSG have seen a host of potential successors such as Jose Mourinho (Chelsea) and Rafael Benitez (Napoli) join other clubs, while a move for Russia national team boss Fabio Capello also fell through.īlanc had also been linked with Roma before the Serie A side elected to appoint former Lille boss Rudi Garcia.Laurent Blanc's continued employment as France manager is in jeopardy because he conflated two issues in a way that was, at best, clumsy and, at worst, racist. "Exclusive information: agreement reached today (Friday) with Laurent Blanc who will become coach of Paris SG," indicated BeInSport, adding that a two-year deal was expected to be finalised at the start of next week.īlanc, 45, had been out of a job since leaving his role in charge of the French national team following their disappointing quarter-final exit at Euro 2012. Paris Saint-Germain have reportedly reached an agreement with Laurent Blanc to become the new manager of the French Ligue 1 champions, according to a post on the BeInSport Twitter account, a TV channel belonging to the club's Qatari owners.
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