Should Laurent Blanc resign following quotastrophe?

By Ulysse Pasquier, writing from Montreal

It seems as though a lot has changed in French Football since the Domenechian World Cup debacle. Laurent Blanc’s inspiring ideology has brought the best out of players who want to play football and are eager to represent their country. France is now on a four-game winning streak in Euro 2012 qualifiers and had the luxury of beating both England and Brazil in the process. Even the new jerseys look amazing now, don’t they? Yet, the French have not lost their touch for controversies. Football in France has indeed been shaken for the past weeks by the revelations made by Mediapart. The French journal reported a conversation that took place in a Football French Federation meeting in which Blanc agreed to introduce a quota at training academies to limit dual-nationality players to be formed in France before leaving to represent other countries. What started as a quota fiasco has quickly escalated into a racism scandal at a political scale, putting serious pressure on FFF president Fernand Duchaussoy and Laurent Blanc. 

Immigration is a very delicate subject in France and an important source of disagreement, which has often had – unfortunately – repercussions on football. Since the familiarly named Black-Blanc-Beur (the latter a term used to describe people of North African origin) dream team that won the 1998 World Cup, Les Bleus have been seen as a symbol of France’s multicultural nature.  

Racism is however still a serious issue and regrettably, not just in Ligue 1 stadiums. In 2006, President of the Languedoc-Roussillon Region, Georges Frêche was excluded from the PS (Socialist Party) following his outburst on the French national team: “there are 9 Blacks out of 11. The normal number would be three or four. This would reflect [French] society.”  

Politicians are politicians and some want all the attention they can get, however, as Patrick Vieira has argued, it is particularly shocking when the coach of the national team starts talking about implementing discriminatory quotas. Indeed the Mediapart leaks showed that Laurent Blanc was favorable for a change in the selection criteria for youth talent. As suggested by the head of the Federation’s National Technical Board, François Blaquart, there would be a 30% cap on the selection at training centers of “certain categories” of youth players. What is even more troubling is the fact that it was said during the meeting that these changes would remain unspoken. 

Well they didn’t remain unspoken for very long. Already, François Blaquart has been suspended by the FFF and the question is now turned towards Laurent Blanc’s fate as coach of the French national team. 

I think that if Blanc was racist, we would have known earlier. Though some of his comments were more than unsettling, I still think they were words from someone simply concerned about football. Though Blanc has apologized, the clumsiness of his remarks should however of course not be an excuse and proper action should be taken so that discriminatory quotas are never implemented. 

Such quotas are not only socially unacceptable, they would also rather hurt French Football by reducing the range of choice training academies have when selecting their players. What is even more annoying is how unneeded these talk of quotas were and I completely agree with Lilian Thuram that dual-nationality is a non-problem, as generally the best players will choose to play for France. Would Marouane Chamakh or Moussa Sow for example be regular starters for Les Bleus? I’m not so sure.

Moreover it is not accurate to say that the money spent on players that then represent other countries is money lost. Indeed a great majority of players trained in France play in Ligue 1 and therefore still bring a great deal in raising the level of French football. 

It is sad for me to see the 1998 World Cup winners to be so divided with Thuram among those asking for Blanc’s resignation while the likes of Emmanuel Petit and even the notoriously discreet Zinedine Zidane have come to their former teammate’s rescue. It would be even sadder however to lose a competent coach after 6 months, when 4 years of stupidity weren’t enough to get rid of Domenech. 

The FFF and the Sports Ministry as part of the investigation have interviewed Blanc and we will know much more tomorrow about his future with Les Bleus. 

Do you think sacking Blanc would be the most appropriate response?