Mrs. Veronique: “Marseille are liars and traitors, worse than PSG. The brawl is an excuse, it’s all about money. It’s De Zerbi who shouts and barks.”
Liars and traitors. Marseille is worse than PSG. Veronique Rabiot has something to say about everyone after Marseille suspended and put her son Adrien up for sale due to a locker room fight with teammate Rowe. The incident took place last Friday after the defeat in Rennes. The midfielder’s mother, who also looks after his interests, attacked president Longoria, “who behaves like an agent,” and sporting director Benatia, “who is not up to the job,” in two interviews with RTL and the daily newspaper La Provence. Not to mention coach De Zerbi, “the one who always shouts and barks in the dressing room.”
First of all, however, Véronique Rabiot went on the media offensive against the club’s directors, who came out to justify the decision: “The president and sporting director are not up to the job. They let themselves be overwhelmed by their emotions and are consumed by their egos. And Longoria behaves like an agent, not a president.” At the center of it all is the now famous brawl a week ago. Véronique points out: “I wasn’t in the locker room, and neither was Longoria. Adrien will tell his side of the story, but it’s clear that with each passing day, as can happen in soccer, the argument is becoming more and more violent. The managers talk about unprecedented violence, but there were no broken noses or split lips, no stitches, and no one ended up in the hospital. Neither the coach nor the sporting director intervened. There was no unprecedented violence, no injuries.”
betrayal— President Longoria and sporting director Benatia justified the decision to exclude Rabiot by evoking the need to respect the club. Here too, Véronique replies: “What respect is a president talking about when he shouted ‘corruption, corruption’ to criticize the referees? Or a sporting director who was suspended for months for criticizing the decisions of the match officials? They are certainly not the ones to set an example.“ Then the midfielder’s mother (and agent) had words for De Zerbi: ”He says he’s never seen anything like it, that he was shocked, when he’s always the one shouting and barking in the dressing room. He gave Greenwood, who beat his wife, a second chance; he could have given it to Adrien too.” And that’s not all: “De Zerbi says he feels betrayed by the lack of commitment since the training camp in the Netherlands. But it is Adrien who has been betrayed. In this situation, Adrien feels ungrateful, betrayed, and disrespected.”
money— Véronique Rabiot even makes an unexpected mea culpa, recalling last season in Paris when her son was excluded for most of the year because he did not want to renew his contract, eventually taking the Emir’s club to court and winning a case for mobbing: “We thought we had experienced the worst with PSG, but I was wrong. It’s even worse in Marseille.” A parallel that is not unfounded: “The whole thing is a set-up, the truth lies elsewhere. If the incident had been so serious, Adrien would have been fired. It’s all an excuse to put him on the market a year before his contract expires and make some money. In soccer, everyone lies and everyone knows that everyone lies. When you don’t understand what’s going on, it means there’s money behind it.”
