French football was recently rocked by a racial quota row which saw a football federation official suspended and national team coach Laurent Blanc interrogated by the country’s sports ministry.

Both men were at a meeting where introducing a limit on the number of black and Arab players at the nation’s training academies was discussed. A recording of the meeting was leaked to a website and the rest, as they say, is history.
Blanc was cleared of any wrongdoing in the subsequent investigation held by the French Football Federation (FFF), with the governing body stating it had renewed its “full confidence” in the coach of Les Bleus. Blanc himself admitted using language that may have been “offensive to some sensibilities.”

For me, there were two issues behind the headlines that are worthy of further analysis. The first being how to stop a drain of youth talent leaving the system before realizing its poten-tial in the national side. The second, how merit should always trump race….

 

 

CNN’s Pedro Pinto is a CNN sports anchor based in London, covering sport around the world. Formore go to www.cnn.com/worldsport

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