Hamraoui case

Hamraoui in 2015 during her first stint with Paris Saint-Germain

Kheira Hamraoui and Aminata Diallo are both French football midfielders;[6] Hamraoui is of Algerian (North African) descent,[7] and Diallo is of Senegalese (West African) descent.[8][9] Hamraoui joined Paris Saint-Germain Féminine (PSG) for the second time in July 2021, from FC Barcelona Femení, taking a position in the starting line-up. Diallo had joined PSG in the summer of 2016, when Hamraoui left after her first stint with the club, having little game time following Hamraoui's return.[3][10][6] During her time in Barcelona, Hamraoui had an affair with Eric Abidal, a French former player who was the sporting director of FC Barcelona at the time.[11][12] Diallo was also in Spain during some of the time Hamraoui was in Barcelona, spending 18 months on loan at Atlético Madrid Femenino;[10][13] the two were friends and had gone on holiday together in this period.[6][12]

A PSG women's team meal was held on 4 November 2021. Several weeks earlier, members of the team received phone calls from an unknown caller telling them to stay away from Hamraoui.[12][6]

Diallo had driven Hamraoui and Sakina Karchaoui to the meal after the club recommended carpooling, with the three leaving the restaurant together at around 22:30. Diallo was tentatively pulling out after dropping off Karchaoui at her home in the suburb of Chatou when two masked men came out from behind a nearby van and slammed on the car bonnet, telling Diallo and Hamraoui to unlock the doors; one held Diallo in the driver's seat while the other hit Hamraoui with an iron bar to force her out of the car, dragging her into the street and beating her, particularly her legs, with the bar. She tried to block these blows with her hands.[12] Hamraoui reported that during the attack she heard the men speak about a married man; Diallo later told the police she heard one of them say "So like that, you touch married men?", as well as sexual insults, over Hamraoui screaming.[12] The attackers left after less than a minute, with Hamraoui getting herself back into the car. She and Diallo called Karchaoui to tell her what had happened; Karchaoui came back to the car and Diallo drove them to an emergency department.[12]

PSG put its three players and a friend of Hamraoui's up in a Holiday Inn near the team's training ground; during the night, the four speculated on who may have attacked Hamraoui, with "people familiar with the conversations" saying that Hamraoui had adamantly believed it was someone from PSG from the start, including naming[12] César Mavacala,[14] a sports agent and the husband of Kadidiatou Diani, another PSG player. The next morning, Abidal called Hamraoui; she placed the call on speakerphone as the others were in the room. Hamraoui asked Abidal if his wife may want to hurt her and then told him about the assault: Abidal reportedly "sounded stunned" at the news.[12] Hamraoui received more medical treatment on the day after the attack while Diallo and Karchaoui returned to training, after which they and the players who had received the anonymous phone calls were interviewed by police.[12]

Early on the morning of 10 November 2021, police officers came to Diallo's home, taking her in for questioning and searching her home.[12] She was taken to the police station in Versailles; while being escorted to an interview room, an officer offhandedly asked her if she had heard of Tonya Harding – an American figure skater who was involved with an attack on her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, very similar to the one suffered by Hamraoui.[3] Diallo declined the offer to have a lawyer present, not initially realising she was being interviewed as a suspect. The next day, Hamraoui attended the police station as part of a witness process, and told Diallo that she "had heard from other teammates that Diallo was behind the attack."[12]

French police were also questioning a male suspect, imprisoned in Lyon and known as "Ja Ja", at the time, due to his connections with female footballers. They also pursued a line of inquiry relating to Hamraoui's affair with Abidal.[12]

Diallo was still in police custody when the theory that she had planned the assault to take Hamraoui's place in the PSG and France teams was first published in the press; the intrigue of the case, its similarity to that of Harding and Kerrigan, and the connection to a wealthy football club meant the story entered the global news cycle shortly thereafter. Diallo's lawyers were critical of the difference in treatment she received from the police compared to Abidal.[12]

Later in November 2021, Abidal's wife requested a divorce after discovering his infidelity due to the case:[3][11] part of the investigation uncovered that Hamraoui's phone number was registered to Abidal.[6]

Diallo's contract with PSG expired at the end of the 2021–22 season in July 2022, and was not renewed; she said she was surprised and had believed right until the last few days that PSG would keep her.[15] After being charged with the assault in September 2022,[2] she was placed under judicial supervision and forbidden from entering Paris or contacting her former team.[16] The terms of her supervision initially included not leaving the country but, in January 2023, Spanish club Levante UD Femenino controversially announced that they had signed Diallo until the end of the 2022–23 season. Levante were second in the Spanish league behind Barcelona at the time, and their manager was Jose Luis Sanchez Vera, whom Diallo had worked with at Atlético Madrid. Her lawyers successfully petitioned the judge to allow her to leave France. Her Levante contract included the stipulation that she could not play any match against PSG or any match at which Hamraoui may be present.[15]