French police have opened an investigation into World Cup winner Paul Pogba’s claims he is being threatened and targeted for extortion by gangsters.
Pogba’s allegations came after his brother Mathias published a bizarre video online – in French, Italian, English and Spanish – promising “great revelations” about the Juventus star.
A statement signed by his lawyers, his mother Yeo Moriba and agent Rafaela Pimenta said the videos published on Saturday night “are unfortunately no surprise”.
“They are in addition to threats and extortion attempts by an organised gang against Paul Pogba,” read the statement.
“The competent bodies in Italy and France were informed a month ago and there will be no further comments in relation to the ongoing investigation.”
Mathias Pogba, 32, promised “great revelations about [his] brother Paul Pogba and his agent Rafaela Pimenta”, who took over as head of the company of former agent Mino Raiola who died in April.
He said the “whole world, as well as my brother’s fans, and even more so the French team and Juventus, my brother’s team-mates and his sponsors deserve to know certain things”.
Also a professional footballer, Mathias Pogba said people needed to know what he knew to judge whether his brother “deserves his place in the French team and the honour of playing in the World Cup. If he deserves to be a starter at Juventus”.
“All this is likely to be explosive,” he concluded without adding any substance to his “revelations”.
According to two sources close to the Pogba family contacted by the AFP news agency, large sums of money are being demanded from Paul Pogba if he wants to avoid the dissemination of the allegedly compromising videos.
Pogba, 29, who won the World Cup with France in 2018, returned to Juventus on a free transfer this summer after six years at Manchester United, but is sidelined with a knee injury. – The Telegraph
