Toulouse FC has joined Zakaria Aboukhlal in denying claims made by RMC Sport, which attributed serious “misogynist” remarks to the Moroccan football player.
In a statement, the French football club stressed that the “facts reported by RMC Sport did not reflect what happened on April 30 at the Capitol.”
The French club also announced the end of an internal investigation, stressing Aboukhlal will return to the club as of today.
“The club will not comment further,” the communique concluded.
Toulouse FC’s statement comes on the heels of a controversial report earlier this week by RMC Sport. The French news outlet had claimed that Aboukhlal made “misogynistic” remarks against Laurence Arribage, Toulouse’s deputy mayor in charge of sports.
According to RMC Sport, the Moroccan player made the remarks following Arribage’s request of him and his teammates to make “less noise” during a speech by the team’s head coach.
Aboukhlal “dismissed” the request and told the deputy mayor, RMC claimed, alleging that the Moroccan football player said: “At home, women don’t talk like that to men.”
Even as Arribage cast doubt on RMC’s claims, the news outlet continued its campaign targeting Aboukhlal, maintaining its accusations as the incident allegedly happened before “witnesses.”
Earlier today, Aboukhlal announced that he and Arribage met to discuss RMC’s claims.
“Following the article published by RMC on Monday, May 15th, I had the opportunity to meet and discuss with Laurence Arribage. During the meeting, we both confirmed the RMC SPORT reports do not match what has really happened on 30th of April at the Capitole,” Aboukhlal said in a tweet.
Toulouse FC management attended the meeting.
Prior to its statement in support of Aboukhlal’s side of what has been a major controversy this past week, Toulouse FC had issued a communique, announcing that the football player would be training away from the squad pending an internal investigation to determine the circumstances of the alleged altercation.
With the club’s internal investigation having validated Aboukhlal’s strong denial of RMC Sport’s claims, it remains to be seen whether the outlet will withdraw its inaccurate report and apologize to the Moroccan player.
