The midfielder of the France team and Juventus Turin Paul Pogba decided to have surgery on his right knee, two and a half months before the start of the World Cup (November 20-December 18 in Qatar), Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri announced on Monday.
“Pogba went out this morning to train but he stopped and decided to have an operation”, said Allegri, on the eve of the meeting against PSG in the Champions League. Affected in the knee in July, Pogba had, at first, decided not to have surgery to keep his chances of competing in the World Cup intact and had just resumed the race in training. This operation should keep him away from the field for between 45 and 60 days.
Mbappé’s confidence
Target of extortion attempts amounting to millions of euros, Paul Pogba is currently at the heart of an incredible affair. The name of French football star Kylian Mbappé reluctantly appears in the file, Paul Pogba having explained to investigators that “his blackmailers wanted to discredit him by broadcasting messages in which he allegedly asked a marabout from his family circle to cast a spell” to the PSG striker, which he denies.
“I prefer to trust the word of a teammate”, explained Kylian Mbappé, he said at a press conference on Monday. Paul Pogba has it “called” and him “gave his version of the facts”he specified. “It’s his word against that of his brother (Mathias), I will trust his word, in the interest of the French team”, added Mbappé, who was speaking just before the Champions League match against Juventus Turin on Tuesday (9:00 p.m.). “I’ll see how it goes, but I’m pretty detached from it all”he commented.
During a second hearing with investigators, Paul Pogba denied having hired a marabout to cast a spell on Mbappé, according to Franceinfo. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Friday opened a judicial investigation into the extortion denounced by the star of the French football team and Juventus Turin.
According to previous information from France Info, confirmed to AFP by a source close to the case, Paul Pogba had confided to the investigators, during a first hearing, to have been trapped by childhood friends and two hooded men, armed with assault rifles, blaming him for not helping them financially. A sum of 13 million euros would have been claimed from him, and he claims to have paid 100,000 euros. Among the suspects, he claims to have recognized his older brother Mathias.