Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra has been convicted by a Paris court of posting homophobic abuse online.
The 41-year-old ex-France international did not attend a ruling in the French capital on Thursday, but he was handed a €1,000 (£890) fine and ordered to pay €2,000 (£1,780) compensation to two anti-hate campaign groups.
The charges in question relate to a video Evra posted back in March 2019 following a Champions League game between United and Paris Saint-Germain.
Evra could be heard in the video saying “Paris, you are queers, you are queers”, before going on to say at the end of a 3-1 victory for the Red Devils that saw them progress to the quarter-finals: “Here, it’s the men who talk.”
Mousse and Stop Homophobia, who are supported by the anti-homophobia collective Rouge Direct, filed a complaint alleging “public insult towards a group of people because of their sexual orientation”.
The case was reclassified to a complaint of “non-public insult” and duly referred to the Paris Police Court.
The presiding Judge ruled that Evra had “expressed himself in a private setting for the making of a video which was later posted on Snapchat without his knowledge”.
Evra’s lawyer, Jerome Boursican, was eager to point out that his client had “not wanted to harm the homosexual community” and was, with passion running high following an action-packed sporting encounter, merely “aiming [insults] at PSG”.
Evra did, however, come in for widespread criticism on the back of his comments and the complainants’ lawyer, Etienne Deshoulieres, released the following statement after seeing a conviction handed out: “The homophobic remarks of a personality like Patrice Evra fuel hatred and violence against LGBT people, in particular in countries where homosexuality is criminally repressed, like in Senegal, the country where Patrice Evra comes from.”
Evra, who retired in 2018 and now lives in Dubai, was born in Dakar but earned 81 caps for France over the course of a career that saw him represent the likes of United, Monaco, Juventus, Marseille and West Ham at club level.
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