Source article: "Foot : « On a tous déjà touché des filles », les propos lunaires de Bouhazama, entraîneur d'Angers", Le Figaro, 07/03/2023
Angers SCO are languishing at the bottom of Ligue 1, with 16 defeats in their last 18 matches, but they have managed to kick up more of a storm off the pitch than on it. As the French daily newspapers L'Équipe and Ouest-France recently revealed, the team’s manager Abdel Bouhazama made quite an astonishing comment in the dressing room before their 5-0 defeat at Montpellier last Sunday. According to several witnesses who spoke to L'Équipe, a few hours before the match in the CGL Stadium, Bouhazama, 54, gave a pointedly “manly” speech in which he defended his decision to select 28-year-old left-back, Ilyes Chetti.
The selection may well have raised eyebrows in the dressing room, because Chetti has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in an Angers nightclub. Video surveillance footage has been seen by most of his teammates, and Chetti has admitted to the facts of the case. He is due to appear in court in Angers in the coming weeks.
"We've all touched up girls before"
Bouhazama seems to have overstepped the mark in defending Chetti. According to a witness who spoke to l’Equipe, "He said: ‘Come on, it's not that bad, we've all touched up girls before’. We were all shocked, speechless to hear him say a thing like that." A few of the team’s female staff were present during the exchanges.
Female Staff Members Present
When contacted by L'Équipe, Bouhazama admitted that he had made these inappropriate remarks. "But when you take it out of context... I also said that what the player did was bad," explained Bouhazama, “then I said that we've all made foolish mistakes; who hasn’t made a mistake like Ilyes? That's all."
Institutional Problems
Last October, Bouhazama, who at the time was head of the team’s training academy, was the subject of in an investigative report by Ouest-France, in which his management style was denounced and sometimes characterised as "humiliating". Since February 2020, several female employees have made accusations of sexual harassment against Anger SCO's chariman and owner, Saïd Chabane. Last December, the public prosecutor’s office in Angers decided to press criminal charges in these cases. The trial is scheduled to take place in June.
Translated by Zénaïde Essammah, Maria Bou Gharios and Olivia Pritchard
Editing by Sam Trainor