Luke Harvey believes the one-match ban on French players for their playground tantrum in South Africa is both ineffectual and, by punishing the (possibly) innocent, unfair. The truth remains confused: the French sports minister spoke of the bullies and the meek but players who have spoken publicly insist everyone was up for the strike with no good guy/bad guy split. Picking his way through a murky story, Luke finds it in his heart to wish Laurent Blanc well …
Laurent Blanc’s first move as manager of the French national team was a serious statement of intent. The entire 23-man squad who represented the country so poorly in South Africa would be dropped for the next match. That’s every single player, even the ones who didn’t get a chance to set foot on the pitch during the disastrous campaign …
Now it could be said that everyone was as bad as each other, that no one disembarked the coach to train on that dark day in French football history. Yet the claim could also be made that a player such as Mathieu Valbuena, young and barely capped, is highly unlikely to go against the status quo as Messrs Evra, Ribery, Henry and Cisse sat with sullen faces and folded arms in their childish protest at Nicolas Anelka’s dismissal from the national squad.
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