Football : le Sénégal demande la disqualification des U17 français • RFI

Burkina Faso has sent a request against the French team of 17 years old because one of these players had already worn the jersey of Niger. In fact, I have some questions. How did the French team manage to make such a debut? Will they be sanctioned by FIFA or disqualified? These are good questions you ask Abed, especially since the French team qualified for the quarterfinals. Babacar Diara, hello. Hello. Thank you for joining us. Journalist at the RFI Sports Service. So this player that everyone is talking about at the moment, his name is Yannis Issoufou. He moved to Montpellier. He did wear the colours of Niger during the qualifying matches for the under-17s. It should be remembered that Burkina Faso, which is at the origin of this request and which claims the disqualification of the French team, Burkina met the French in the group stage of the World Cup. Indeed, the young talents were the first opponents of the Blues on 12 November last year in this World Cup held in Indonesia. They were 3-0 down before being eliminated from the group stage. And indeed, that day, the French coach Jean-Luc Vanhoutie had aligned Yannis Ali Issoufou on the right wing. He did the same for the other two group matches. A native of Nimes, but whose family name recalls the Nigerian origins. Issoufou wore the colours of his father's country in 2022 for four matches in the U17 qualifiers, which he did not dispute. In the meantime, France spotted his talents, to the point of shipping him for the Euro, disputed this year in May and June, where the Blues failed in the final, a final that was disputed. At the time, the French Football Federation had not taken care to register the change of association of the player with FIFA, hence the current imbroglio, with the request made by Burkina Faso out of date because it had to be done five days before the competition, then by the Senegalese federation, which also sent a letter to FIFA, demanding the disqualification of the Blues by relying on Article 24 of the World Cup Regulation 17. The question of Abed is relevant. How did France, the French Federation, manage to make such a mistake? We can talk about an administrative negligence. It simply did not check with the ancestors of Yannis Issoufou, whose talent is certain, but it may have blinded them, or worse, if it was aware, it imagined that the qualifiers in Africa and the competitions disputed with the Blues were under the aegis of distinct regulations. This is not the case. So what does FIFA say in all this? Not much. Officially, at least, to believe that it does not intend to apply its own regulations, that's what we can think, because at this stage of the competition and on the eve of the quarter-finals of France against Uzbekistan, a disqualification seems very unlikely. Moreover, the request from Senegal had little chance to pass, given that the player did not play against the Lyons. Abed, do you have a last question? Yes, I have a last question. What was the response of the French Football Federation to this situation? Abed Kardiara. Yes, Abed, the 3F has made a low profile. This controversy was born a few hours after its eighth final, won against Senegal in the draw, and as FIFA did not really react officially on the file, alerted only when Burkina Faso opened the file. It came directly from the FIFA Commission, a way to show its good faith. The French decision-makers simply chose to withdraw Issoufou from the match sheet. We can imagine that the young player will not play again by the end of the competition, if ever France goes further. Besides, the player's reaction, it deserves to be scrutinized closely in the future. What did he do? He did nothing, but he was born from a Nigerian father, we said it, but from a Moroccan mother. And Morocco recruits, in quotation marks, many players who went through the French youth teams. There are players such as Adli or Richardson who played with the French youth teams and who will soon dispute the Africa Cup of Nations. So soon we will scrutinize the case Issoufou. Ah, well, listen, we'll follow that. Thank you, Baba Kardiara.