The French team midfielder almost lost everything a few months ago.
We only talk about him during this Euro 2024, N’Golo Kanté, surprise caller from Didier Deschamps’ list for this European Championship, has a string of high-level performances. Exiled in Saudi Arabia since his departure from Chelsea, the Frenchman has lost none of his splendor, quite the contrary.
But if the Frenchman is impressive on the field today, he was recently involved in a legal case which could have ruined his career. At the center of conflicts and rivalries between several members of his entourage, N’Golo Kanté filed a complaint in 2019 before the Paris prosecutor’s office, for “fraud”, “attempted fraud”, “breach of trust” and “illegal exercise of the profession of sports agent” against his former image advisor, Nouari Khiari.
The France team player notably criticized his former advisor for having put pressure on him to obtain more money after the termination in 2017 of a contract between them. In an interview for L‘Teamthe midfielder spoke of a trust that had been “abused”: “I was too kind. We had reached an agreement to terminate the contract, but this person went back on it. At the same time, she is trying to circulate defamatory things about those around me or those around them to put pressure on me, so I took steps to separate myself from her as quickly as possible.
But the Paris prosecutor’s office rejected the footballer’s case. In 2021, he closed the Londoner’s complaint, considering that the offense was “insufficiently characterized”. “I have been slandered, and my reputation has been tarnished,” reacted ex-agent Nouari Khiari. “I was wrongly accused, but I do not blame N’Golo who, in my eyes, was manipulated. In this case, there was an instrumentalization of criminal justice and the media in an attempt to divert the debate and not discuss the main thing: respect for a contract.”
As a reminder, a survey of Mediapart was also published at the time, evoking threats in 2017, against the backdrop of a struggle for influence between several of his relatives. What the French world champion had denied. A France Football investigation also shed light on an episode of robbery with a firearm. But here too, the Frenchman did not really wish to respond.