Two players plying their trade in the Ligue 1 — Toulouse’s Zakaria Aboukhlal and Nantes’ Mostafa Mohamed — were omitted from the teamsheet for the match between the two sides on Sunday after they refused to participate in the league-wide campaign against homophobia.
All teams in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 this weekend needed their players to wear shirts featuring numbers in rainbow colours as part of the initiative. The captains’ armbands were similarly coloured.
Moroccan Aboukhlal, a regular starter for Toulouse, sat out the game after refusing to wear the jersey, according to La Depeche du Midi newspaper. His teammates Logan Costa and Fares Chaibi also did not want to play although they were both named on the teamsheet.
Mohamed, an Egyptian, also refused to wear the jersey, a source close to the French side Nantes said.
Meanwhile, Guingamp’s Senegalese defender Donatien Gomis ruled himself out of the Ligue 2 clash with Sochaux on Saturday for the same reason, club sources said.
As part of the elite French leagues’ annual anti-homophobia campaign, the rainbow-adorned shirts will be sold at auction with the proceeds going to three charities active in fighting LGBTQ discrimination.
In a more recent development, Aboukhlal has been asked to train separately and away from the first team after he reportedly made some sexist comments against a high-ranking Toulouse local government official.
Foreign news outlet RMC Sport revealed on Monday that a reception took place at Toulouse’s town hall between members of the squad and the city’s officials.
During a speech by club head coach Philippe Montanier, the players were reportedly very rowdy. Laurence Arribagé, deputy mayor of Toulouse in charge of sports then requested the players to be quiet. In return, Aboukhlal reportedly fired back saying, “Where I’m from, women don’t talk to men like that.”
Stunned by these offensive remarks, Arribagé reminded Aboukhlal that he was currently in the town hall, 'a place of the Republic'. The report adds that Aboukhlal then confronted Arribagé and asked her to apologise.
However, the deputy mayor has confirmed that she told the players to be quiet and that they did not like her request. But she denied the reports saying, “There’s no story.”
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