EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – Anelka's slap of Sébastien Tarrago, the starting point of L'Équipe's lie in Knysna. Revelations following the Netflix documentary

By Jérôme Goulon.

Published online on May 13 by Netflix, the documentary The bus, the French national team on strikeThe documentary, which revisits the Knysna scandal during the 2010 World Cup, continues to generate discussion and reopens one of the deepest wounds in French football. One of the most controversial elements of this documentary is undoubtedly the misleading front page of the newspaper. The Teamwho at the time claimed that Nicolas Anelka had said to Raymond Domenech in the locker room: "Go fuck yourself, you dirty son of a bitch." A front page that could well stem from an old dispute between Sébastien Tarrago, The Team and Anelka, whom we had revealed in 2001.

"You dirty son of a bitch", the misleading coverage by L'Équipe

Although there was indeed an altercation between the two men, Nicolas Anelka never called Raymond Domenech a "You dirty son of a bitch"All those present during this altercation are affirmative and unanimous on this point. This did not prevent The Team to publish this devastating headline on its June 19, 2010 cover, with all the collateral damage it caused. Everyone knows what followed: Nicolas Anelka's dismissal from the French national team, the players' strike in Knysna, the image of French football destroyed, and the reputations of some players forever tarnished. Nearly 20 or 30 million French people remain convinced today that Nicolas Anelka actually made those remarks…

The Team strangely spared by the Netflix documentary, despite his lie

Following the broadcast of The bus, the French national team on strike, which therefore provides further proof of the lie of The TeamMany observers questioned the documentary's extreme leniency towards The Team, yet responsible for a fake news story with catastrophic consequences. These same observers are astonished that the sports daily has never issued a mea culpa or apologized. A genuine investigation was therefore expected to push journalists to The Team They were cornered, trying to understand why and how the newspaper could have let this happen. But nothing came of it. The Team has tarnished, forever and unjustly, a player's reputation, and it's as if nothing happened. So yes, the sports daily won its defamation lawsuit against Nicolas Anelka. But only because the court considered that there had indeed been an altercation, and that the fabrication of the "You dirty son of a bitch" by The Team Nothing changed. Yet, a "Your shitty team" cannot be placed on the same level as a "You dirty son of a bitch"We are no longer dealing with exaggeration, but with pure and simple invention.

The old conflict between Nicolas Anelka and Sébastien Tarrago, revealed in 2001 by Interviews, must have played a part in this misleading front page of The Team

Faced with this blatant fake news of The Team June 19, 2010, which, as we recall, had a colossal impact on the lives of several men, inevitably raises the question: what prompted the newspaper to publish its front page?

First hypothesis: a bad source, bad information? That can happen. But in that case, you admit your mistake, you deny it, and you apologize. That wasn't the case here.

Second hypothesis: a race for media attention? It's quite possible. Remember that the altercation between Nicolas Anelka and Raymond Domenech was known to several newsrooms and was starting to leak. The Team wanted his scoop, and therefore chose to publish this sentence without properly verifying it. After all, in the race for information, a saying unfortunately applies all too often in newsrooms: "It's better to be the first to be wrong than the second to be right."

A third hypothesis, which is not incompatible with the second, is the desire for revenge, resentment. And this is the heart of the matter. As a reminder, in 2001, when Nicolas Anelka was playing for PSG, he slapped Sébastien Tarrago during a training session. The two men detest each other. A scene we filmed exclusively and published in Interviews, and which explains the hostility between the player and the journalists of The TeamSo, be careful: we are not saying that The Team He deliberately fabricated the entire story. However, it's reasonable to assume that the very serious dispute between Nicolas Anelka and Sébastien Tarrago inevitably played a role in the spread of this fake news. It's well known that in the media, some journalists are close to certain players and protect them, keeping their unspeakable secrets to themselves. There are many examples. The reverse is also true: journalists also have their pet peeves. And in Nicolas Anelka's case, the opportunity was too good to pass up. It's therefore not unreasonable to think that if another player had been involved, the information would have been more thoroughly verified, and the fake news would never have surfaced…

Sébastien Tarrago's shaky defense

Following the revelations ofInterviews Regarding the slap that Nicolas Anelka gave Sébastien Tarrago in 2001, many wondered if this conflict between the two men wasn't originally the reason for the front page of The Team "Go fuck yourself, you dirty son of a bitch.", as an act of revenge.

In response, Sébastien Tarrago tries to exonerate himself by claiming that he did not write the article about Nicolas Anelka and that he was not the one who decided on the cover of The TeamHowever, in 2010, the two journalists from The Team who revealed the altercation between Anelka and Domenech, Damien Degorre and Raphaël Raymond were under the supervision of Sébastien Tarrago, who approved their article. Sébastien Tarrago even wrote about x in 2020: "I always had confidence in those who were under my responsibility at the time."

Worse still, in a video taken by AFP on June 19, 2010 in Knysna, the day of the release in The Team Regarding the misleading front page, Sébastien Tarrago, who now claims not to have written the article, implicates Anelka and asserts that the information is true: “These are people who learned about it from witnesses. Afterwards, they're not going to tell us what our sources are. But there you have it, it's proven, nobody is saying otherwise. (…) It was a shockwave. Obviously, it had to be brought to light. Then, we can talk about the vulgarity of the remarks. The vulgarity isn't us, it's Nicolas Anelka's. We're reporting what happened, we're reporting the truth. (…) Of course, we think about everything, we're not completely stupid. We try to weigh the weight of our words.”

A damning video proves that Sébastien Tarrago, even if he didn't write the article, fully approved and endorsed its content at the time… Therefore, the same question keeps coming up: without his dispute with Nicolas Anelka, would Sébastien Tarrago have been more thorough in verifying the statements attributed to Anelka? The answer seems obvious. Sébastien Tarrago and The Team They had the opportunity to "get" on Anelka, with whom they had been at war for years, and pounced on him without checking their sources. In light of these elements, it seems impossible to ignore or minimize the role of this falling out in the lie of The Team June 19, 2010…

Stephen Kamga, co-producer of the Netflix documentary, dodges the question.

In theAfter Foot On May 14th on RMC, co-producer of the documentary Stephen Kamga was questioned by Daniel Riolo about the role that the past might have played between Nicolas Anelka and Sébastien Tarrago. Stephen Kamga dodged the question, replying: "This is something we investigated extensively, to see if there was a parallel between this altercation between this journalist and Nicolas Anelka, and for us, it was absolutely not the focus of the matter. Tarrago had nothing to do with the publication of this front page." These statements exonerate Sébastien Tarrago and The Team, whereas the hypothesis of settling scores cannot be dismissed so easily.

In October 2024, the Netflix documentary production team had contacted Interviews in order to obtain footage of the altercation between Sébastien Tarrago and Nicolas Anelka. Footage that we provided them. Stephen Kamga and his team chose not to use it and to completely ignore the role of said altercation on the front page of The TeamIt's their choice, and we respect it. Did they really consider that this falling out had no impact? Did they want to protect Sébastien Tarrago, whom they had difficulty getting for their documentary? We don't know…

What is certain, however, is that contrary to what Stephen Kamga says, Sébastien Tarrago is not there at all "for nothing" in the front-page publication of The Team Indeed, if he had been more thorough in verifying the information provided by the two journalists under his supervision, the "Go fuck yourself, you dirty son of a bitch." would never have existed, and neither would the front page… But did Tarrago really want to go to such lengths to exonerate Nicolas Anelka? That's far from certain… The scandal of this misleading front page The TeamWould it have existed, and the terrible consequences that followed, without Nicolas Anelka's infamous slap of Sébastien Tarrago in 2001? Everyone will form their own opinion…