The former French international Franck Ribery had a violent altercation with the consultant of the TV channel BeIN Sports Patrick Guillou, Saturday after the 3-2 defeat in Dortmund, reports Monday the German media Bild, a confirmed information to AFP by the chain.
« Franck Ribery made offensive remarks about Patrick Guillou and attacked him physically, » said the channel in a statement sent to AFP.
The channel said it had spoken with Bayern Munich over the weekend and « hopes to resolve this dispute as soon as possible ».
Bild reports that Bayern sports director Hasan Salihamidzic has confirmed an incident: « Franck Ribéry informed us that he had an altercation with his compatriot Patrick Guillou, whom he has known for several years, and we have agreed with Patrick Guillou on Saturday. On the evening of an upcoming meeting to discuss how to solve the problem, Mr. Guillou told us that this was also in his interest « .
The incident, according to testimonies collected by the newspaper, took place on the bus team one hour after the match, which rejected Bayern in 5th place in the standings at seven points in Dortmund. By recognizing the consultant, himself a former professional player, Ribery began to take him to task. According to these testimonies, he slapped his face three times before pushing him to the chest.
Without being able to confirm this, Bild assumes that the 35-year-old’s anger was provoked by Guillou’s comments during the match. The wife of Ribery, Wahiba, had sent a message on Instagram to say that Guillou was « much too tiring and useless ».
BeIN Sports « has full confidence in the journalistic integrity of Patrick Guillou, who has been working on its desks since 2017 and is one of the best international consultants ». The channel « condemns all types of violence and salutes Patrick’s attitude to this regrettable incident. »
Patrick Guillou said he would not comment.