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Hello. The Paul Pogba empire has lost its shine. But a new dawn rises at Everton.
On the way:
£11m Extortion Plot: Suspended jail sentence for Pogba’s brother after blackmail of midfielder
(GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images)
How powerful Brand Pogba could have been. Think back to the summer of 2018, when Paul Pogba rose above the clawing scepticism around him and won the World Cup. Football’s trappings belonged to him and those around him. It was, and is, only six-and-a-half years ago.
All Brand Pogba represents now is a crumbled empire. In a matter of days, the midfielder will reach the effective end of a doping ban that has stopped him playing since September 2023. He returns officially in March but can resume training with a club next month. He needs to find one first because he and Juventus mutually severed his contract three weeks ago.
Professional pressures are only half of his strife, though. Yesterday, Pogba’s older brother, Mathias (above, right), was one of six men found guilty of attempting to extort money from the France international, the culmination of a criminal case involving blackmail, allegations of witchcraft and Kylian Mbappe.
To sum up briefly, Pogba said the group demanded more than £11m ($12.5m) from him by threatening to publicly claim he paid a marabout — technically a Muslim holy man, with connotations of a north African witch doctor — to place a curse on France team-mate Mbappe. The six accused denied wrongdoing but were all convicted by a court in Paris yesterday.
Mathias, 34, was sentenced to three years in prison. Two of those are suspended and the other year he will spend under house arrest. Pogba is to be paid over £200,000 in compensation. He was not in court to hear the verdicts.
For him, they marked the end of one uncomfortable saga. Now, at the age of 31, he has to try to draw a line under another by relaunching a career which, in 2018, had everything in front of it. He’ll hope for his pick of clubs, but nothing says more about the decline of Brand Pogba than him having to take whatever he can get.
Everton Escape: How U.S. owners saved club from debt spiral
As the saying goes, if you want to make a small fortune by owning a football club, start with a big one. That rings true with Farhad Moshiri. He drilled £800m into Everton. After selling them yesterday, he’ll be lucky to walk away with a tenth of that sum.
Others will try where he failed, however, because Premier League teams are coveted assets, especially to investors in the United States. That Moshiri took so long to find a buyer for Everton speaks to the scale of the financial problems at Goodison Park. In layman’s terms, they were shot.
Debt ran close to £1bn. Entering administration was discussed. The timeline laid out by Paddy Boyland is fraught and you marvel that Everton kept the show on the road. More stability should come via The Friedkin Group (TFG), the U.S. firm which has bought Moshiri out. For one thing, it has converted its own loans to equity. But reading the chain of events, it’s obvious why even TFG got cold feet at various stages of its bid.
We’ll watch with interest to see where this goes. On the footballing side alone, TFG has a manager, Sean Dyche, and a director of football, Kevin Thelwell, who are both out of contract at the end of this season. As for Moshiri, he departs much lighter in the pocket. He also moves on having delivered the new stadium Everton spent decades talking about building. It’s one of life’s ironies.
News round-up
Forster Fiasco: Spurs keeper highlights the ‘most dangerous pass in football’
A good game for the neutral usually translates as one that ages a coach by 10 years. At stages of yesterday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final, Ange Postecoglou and Ruben Amorim looked ready to call it a night and hail a cab.
Tottenham Hotspur made it through by the skin of their teeth. They were 3-0 up against Manchester United before their goalkeeper, Fraser Forster, began phoning it in with some risible attempts to play out from the back. Two mistakes (the worst of them, above) brought United back into the game, only for United to concede directly from a corner. It was 4-3 by full time and all good fun.
TAFC has been tracking playing-out-from-the-back comedy for many months. Stuart James went further today by analysing what he calls “the most dangerous pass in football” — that one where a keeper lays the ball to the feet of an outfield player on the edge of the box amid the opposition’s press. I’d say ‘wise up, people’ but actually, in the interests of this newsletter’s GIF addiction, keep the fiascos coming.
Around The Athletic FC
(Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Catch A Match (Times ET/UK)
(Selected games)
Friday: German Bundesliga: Bayern Munich vs RB Leipzig, 2.30pm/7.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Sky Sports.
Saturday: Premier League: Aston Villa vs Manchester City, 7.30am/12.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/TNT Sports; Crystal Palace vs Arsenal, 12.30pm/5.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports; League One: Bristol Rovers vs Wrexham, 7.30am/12.30pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports; La Liga: Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid, 3pm/8pm — ESPN+, Fubo/ITV4, Premier Sports.
Sunday: Premier League: Everton vs Chelsea, 9am/2pm — USA Network, Fubo; Fulham vs Southampton, 9am/2pm — Peacock Premium/Sky Sports; Manchester United vs Bournemouth, 9am/2pm — Peacock Premium; Tottenham Hotspur vs Liverpool, 11.30am/4.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports; La Liga: Real Madrid vs Sevilla, 10.15am/3.15pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports; Dutch Eredivisie: PSV vs Feyenoord, 8.30am/1.30pm — ESPN+/TrillerTV+.
And finally…
A late entrant for the red-card-of-the-year award, from the wild west of Scotland’s lower leagues.
Forfar (east coast-ish) were playing Peterhead (north coast-ish) when, right on half-time, the game sprung into life. Peterhead’s Kieran Shanks scored. Midfielder Andy McCarthy celebrated by leathering the ball at Forfar’s goalkeeper (watch top left after the goal). A scuffle and an early bath followed. Way to go.
(Top photo: Mathias Pogba, second right, arrives at the Paris Criminal Court in November. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images)