The star of the France team and Juventus Turin Paul Pogba was allegedly threatened by “armed men” who demanded 13 million euros. This is what the player explained to the French investigators in charge of the investigation opened for “extortion attempts in an organized gang”, reveal our colleagues from franceinfo this Sunday, August 28. The facts allegedly took place in Paris last March when the midfielder was in France for two national team friendlies.
Paul Pogba first says he went to see friends in his birthplace of Lagny-sur-Marne, in Seine-et-Marne. Some then ask him to follow him in a “secret place”he explains, adding that he was surprised but did not worry “because they are childhood friends”. The group finally arrives in a Parisian apartment, where the player’s friends accuse him of “not having helped them financially” since becoming a professional player.
Paul Pogba blames his brother
Very quickly, everything degenerates, explains Paul Pogba to the investigators. According to him, two hooded men armed with assault rifles enter the room and demand 13 million euros. Why this amount? For “service rendered” because, according to one of the blackmailers, these men protected the player and his family discreetly for 13 years. Intimidated until his return to Manchester, the city of his former club, then Turin, a few days after his arrival at the training center of his new club, in mid-July.
It is in Turin that Paul Pogba says he recognized his brother, Mathias, among those he accuses of bullying him. Mathias Pogba, also a professional football player, published this Saturday August 27 a video on social networks in which he promises “great revelations” which he describes as “explosive” about his brother. It was mid-July that the player finally approached the lawyers of his Italian club, who decided to notify the police.
To investigators from the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police, the Juve player also explained that he had excluded, last January, a friend whom he was hosting in Manchester. He had then just realized that the latter had used his credit card to steal 200,000 euros from him.
The name of Kylian Mbappé in the case
Despite himself, the name of Paris Saint Germain star striker Kylian Mbappé appears in the case. To the investigators, Paul Pogba mentioned in particular the fact that his blackmailers wanted to discredit him by broadcasting messages in which he would have asked a marabout from his family circle to cast a spell on Kylian Mbappéwhich the player denies.