Five club players report racist remarks made by their coach Bernard Casoni, within the club. Suspended, he defends himself against all racism.
“No more stupid than North Africans“, “it was a comparison sentence, I’m anything but racist” declares Bernard Casoni, the coach of US Orléans, guest of France Bleu Orléans, Thursday October 12, three days after the revelations of France Bleu Orléans concerning the racist remarks made at a press conference by the coach.
>> US Orléans coach Bernard Casoni accused of racism: prosecutors open preliminary investigation
On September 21, Bernard Casoni declared, at open microphones, regarding his team which was struggling: “They are no more stupid than North Africans“Last Tuesday, the Orléans prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation against Bernard Casoni, notably for public insult of a racist nature.”It’s a sentence of comparison, if I had been in Canada, I would have said “they are no more stupid than Canadians, because it’s my last club in the Maghreb, that’s why, justifies Bernard Casoni. It’s a sentence that is impossible to declare these days. Of course it shocks, I can understand it and without realizing it, I said it“.
Bernard Casoni reminds us that no one has it “never warned about it, I was never told that it could be misinterpreted. This is a sentence that I am going to delete from my vocabulary, I am going to deprogram myself on this“.
“How did we get here?”
Bernard Casoni also filed a complaint against X on Wednesday for slanderous denunciations with the public prosecutor of Orléans. “When people call me racist, I also have to defend myself because I am anything but racist. I don’t even want to know [quels joueurs ont déposé plainte]I want to defend my family too, the players take their responsibilities, what I want is to explain myself, to explain how we got here“.
The coach declares that he became aware of his verbal slip while listening to the interview with Lilian Thuram on Wednesday on France Bleu Orléans. “It’s just a phrase that doesn’t fit these days, it’s a catchphrase that I use all the time, and I never realized that it could impact people. I understood it when I listened to Lilian Thuram’s interview yesterday [mercredi, sur France Bleu Orléans], but when I say this sentence, I don’t realize the impact it can have, because I was formatted like that. It’s a phrase that I simply have to ban from my vocabulary.“.
Bernard Casoni defines himself as a man “sharing” : “I apologize for having hurt people, it’s not in my nature and I spent 20 years in the Maghreb, I did Eid, I read the Koran, you can’t treat me like that racist, I shared my apartment for three, four years with a North African, I cannot be racist. Being clumsy, no problem. I understand that I said an inappropriate sentence. But it’s impossible that I’m racist“.
Bernard Casoni is suspended until further notice by the USO. “My job is to be a coach, I started to put something in place, two months ago, it’s starting to bear fruit, since we have just had two victories in a row. My wish is to take back the reins“.