Extortion, accusations of witchcraft and two brothers on each side of the bar: the case of the seizure of French footballer Paul Pogba in 2022 will be the subject of a trial in Paris for six men, including Mathias, the player’s brother.
Paul Pogba is world champion with France in 2018. Photo EPA EFE
Two Parisian investigative judges on Tuesday ordered the indictment of Mathias Pogba and five acquaintances and close associates of the 2018 world champion, after two years of investigations that shook the world of football, reports AFP, quoted by Agerpres.
The two judges believe that these five men organized a meeting in the Paris suburbs on March 19, 2022 to “force” the player to give them money.
During a confrontation, Paul Pogba explained that he had previously helped them “willingly” these close ones, including financially, but refused, on the other hand, in September 2021, to pay seven million euros to three of them, before “to distance”.
Seized and robbed during the night
On the same day, March 19, but in the evening, there was a family dinner, followed by a reunion with some of “friends” his, and the player was seized and robbed during the night by two men who demanded 13 million euros.
The two judges consider that it was not, as some of the defendants claimed, “of a simple ‘friendly’ meeting, but rather of facts that fall under the scope of criminal law”.
The 13 million euros were never transferred, but Paul Pogba paid the five close ones around 250,000 euros in money and personal effects.
During the investigation, the defendants adopted, according to the judges, “a common position”, “claiming to be victims of the acts of which Paul Pogba is a victim“, suffering “pressures and aggressions” from two people who ordered these acts, whom the investigation could not identify.
“Present” to these two men “is not contested”, the judges emphasize, and “it is plausible that later they could have exerted pressure on the people who offered them this financial opportunity” linked to Paul Pogba.
But the defendants “they did not warn the competent authorities and preferred to manage these events privately, using criminally punishable means”the magistrates said.
One of the main suspects, Roushdane K., would be “delete evidence” useful for identifying the two mysterious men.
Extortion, kidnapping and criminal association
These three childhood friends and two old acquaintances from the neighborhood where Pogba grew up, on the outskirts of Paris, will be tried mainly for extortion, kidnapping and criminal association. One of them is in detention.
The investigating judges gave up the criminal qualification.
The football player’s brother, Mathias, absent that night, who discovered the seizure much later, will be tried for attempted extortion and criminal association, being suspected of “a posteriori he put pressure on his brother Paul and his family to ensure the payment of 13 million euros“.
Paul Pogba’s brother says he fears for his safety
Mathias defended himself, saying he feared for his safety and that of those close to him, then told judges in January that he had been manipulated by the other suspects and hoped to quickly reconcile with his younger brother.
According to the investigation, he had a bad opinion of his brother and “special resentments, especially related to the way he managed the wealth and how he distributed it to the family”.
Matias accused Paul Pogba of ‘abandoning’ him
The affair became public, turning into a family drama, when Mathias, a former footballer, published several videos in the summer of 2022 accusing his younger brother of taking “abandoned”.
Kylian Mbappe, targeted by spells
Mathias accused Paul, in one of the videos, of asking a sorcerer to cast a spell on Kylian Mbappe, his teammate in the French national team, writes Agerpres.
In February 2024, Paul Pogba, then a Juventus Torino player, was handed a four-year ban after testing positive for testosterone in August 2023.
