The former Barcelona defender is to be questioned over the incident.
In what is rapidly becoming one of the more troubling football stories of 2021, Eric Abidal has now been named and linked to the attack on Paris Saint-Germain women’s player, Kheira Hamraoui.
Abidal enjoyed an excellent playing career with France and Barcelona, before becoming the technical secretary at the Catalan Club under the Josep Maria Bartomeu administration.
Le Monde published a report on Monday which stated that Abidal will be questioned as part of the investigation into the attack on Hamraoui after it emerged that the phone chip on Hamraoui’s device had actually been registered under Abidal’s name.
This has sparked huge rumours that the pair may have been engaged in a relationship, and the possibility of Abidal’s wife, Hayet, being called to questioning hasn’t been dismissed.
According to a number of the players within the female PSG team, Hamraoui called Abidal the day after the attack on her occurred.]
It’s also worth noting that the player herself actually played for Barcelona between the years of 2018 and 2021, with Abidal’s time as technical secretary overlapping that period with his employment running from 2018 to 2020.
Initially it was thought that Aminata Diallo, a teammate of Hamraoui, in the same position within the squad, had ordered the attack to increase her chances of first-team minutes, although that line of enquiry has now been dropped with it confirmed that Diallo had no link to the attack.
Ironically, Diallo was actually in the car with Hamraoui when the vehicle was pulled over by masked assailants, and the latter was dragged out and beaten with iron bars.
Rumours are now increasing that these attackers shouted something related to ‘sleeping with married men’ at the victim, further increasing the suspicion that this is indeed a private life matter, unrelated to PSG or any of their footballing issues