Christophe Galtier, the head coach of PSG, will go on trial in December on charges of discrimination

Following an inquiry into suspected prejudice, Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier will go on trial in December, the Nice prosecutor said on Friday.

An inquiry into allegations that the coach made racist and Islamophobic comments against players while coaching Nice in the 2021–2022 season led to the arrest of the 56-year-old Galtier and his son John Valovic-Galtier, a player’s agent, earlier in the day.

Galtier “denied the offences of which he could be accused” during a hearing on Friday, according to a news statement from public prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme.

The prosecutor said that Galtier would go on trial on December 15 before the Nice Criminal Court for “moral harassment and discrimination on the grounds of actual or supposed membership or non-membership of a particular ethnic group, nation, alleged race, or religion.”

The offenses carry a three-year jail sentence and a 45,000 euro ($49,000) fine.

The public prosecutor said that Valovic-Galtier “was released following his hearing”.

Galtier led PSG to their 11th league championship last season, but the club’s Qatari owners informed him at the start of June that he would be sacked following a mostly dismal year in which PSG suffered 10 losses in 2023 and failed to go beyond the round of 16 in the Champions League, their primary goal.

The accusations, which relate to his tenure as Nice’s coach, first appeared in the French media in April.

According to the reports, Julien Fournier, the former Nice sports director, stated in an email that Galtier had made disparaging comments about the Nice team at the conclusion of the 2021/22 season.

“He (Galtier) told me that I should take account of the reality of the city and that in effect we should not have as many blacks and Muslims in the team,” said Fournier, whose relationship with Galtier was tense.

“He said he wanted to fundamentally alter the team’s composition and cap the number of Muslims.”

In response, Galtier stated he was “deeply shocked by the claims” and refuted them. He filed a slander lawsuit against two journalists and Fournier, claiming that he had received death threats.

Judicial investigation

Without providing any other information, Fournier told AFP on May 22 that he had been questioned as part of the legal investigation.

Investigators also questioned a number of players and administrators, including the club president Jean-Pierre Rivere and the late coach Didier Digard.

According to reports, Fournier, who had a tough relationship with Galtier, wrote the letter to Dave Brailsford, who is now the Director of Sport at Ineos, the owners of Nice and was formerly in charge of British Cycling and Team Sky.

After spending one season at Nice together, Galtier and Fournier both departed the organization last year. The former was hired by PSG.

Former no-nonsense defender Galtier, who spent the most of his playing days at Marseille, where he was born, had a very successful coaching career.

He started at Saint-Etienne before moving on to Lille and leading them to the 2021 Ligue 1 championship, but he quickly moved on to Nice.

He led them to the French Cup final in 2022, where they lost to Nantes, but when PSG came knocking last year, he could not resist the temptation of trying to win the Champions League championship.

Galtier’s fate was set when PSG lost despite having the trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe on the side.