After the statements made during training by Fabien Galthié on Sunday, September 17th, the coach of the Stade Français Espoirs and the Federation conducted a defusing operation, aiming to put an end to the beginning of controversy.
Sa mini-gueulante à l’attention des jeunes joueurs parisiens lors d’un entraînement dimanche matin face aux Espoirs du Stade Français a fait beaucoup causer. « Mettez-moi les meilleurs joueurs en receveur, arrêtez de me mettre des peintres », avait ainsi pesté Fabien Galthié comme pouvaient le montrer les images relayées par nos confrères de RMC Sport. Avant d’en rajouter une couche : « Mettez-moi les mecs réveillés, pas les mecs qui dorment en receveurs […] Un mec adroit, pas un manchot ! »
In response to the controversy, the FFR quickly issued a statement, attributing their coach’s remarks to « humor, » before Boris Bouhraoua, coach of the Parisian hopefuls, provided his version of events on RMC in the early evening.
« It is a beautiful mistake to summarize everything that happened with these few words. »
« It was important for me to speak up because I find what is happening unfair, and this controversy, » he explains in the show Bartoli Time. « I had the chance to be there this morning. I was next to Fabien and I can tell you that it would be a big mistake to summarize everything that has happened since last Monday with these few words. We have been fortunate to work with the French XV for a very long time. Summarizing it to that would be quite disappointing for a very enriching training session for the French XV and our young players from Stade Français. »
The coach emphasizes the attention given by the coach of the French national rugby team to his players: « Fabien spent an hour in the tent explaining the Namibia circuits, how we were going to work in the morning. For the past few days, Fabien has been keeping us informed about what was going to happen this morning and we were already with them last Monday to prepare for Uruguay. We know Fabien very well, so it was really just a joke. »
