Patrice Evra: Former France star opens up about sexual abuse during his career
Former France striker and one-time Manchester United and Juventus star Patrice Evra has opened up about the alleged sexual abuse he suffered during his career.
Evra was named in the ongoing Independent Police Complaints Commission report into sexual abuse in the sport, which accused United of failing to take responsibility for the complaints made by Evra.
Evra, a former PSG forward who won three La Liga titles, played over 800 games for United, Real Madrid and Juventus over a 20-year career.
He was banned for three months in 2000 after a former player claimed he was a victim of sexual abuse by the Juventus head coach Franco Baresi.
Evra is now the chief executive of a football agent firm and is actively involved in trying to ensure that his abuse allegations do not affect the careers of players and clubs he represented.
He said: “Many of my stories are not very nice. I used to enjoy a certain amount of power, and I wanted to use this power in order to take advantage of people’s weaknesses.
“For example, I would say things like: ‘My life is perfect, you’re going to die before you realise it.'”
Evra said he was unaware at the time that he was being groomed by a paedophile until years later, but said many men he was working with became the target of other men.
“The first time I realised I was being abused by men was in 1998, when I was playing in Spain, when one of my players was murdered by a fan called Hugo.
“When I was 19, I went to see the player’s body and I found blood on his clothes. The next day, my father was murdered. It was that night [a night Evra was abused by a man] that I realised I was being abused.
“That was one of the first times I spoke, when I was 19 and at the end of my career. I just said to myself: ‘I’ve been raped by three men, what will it take for me to be able to speak out for a second time?'”
Evra said that he had always been careful not to make his position as a man who could get men to do what he wanted them to do public, and he kept those close to him at arm’s length.
“The first time I realised that is when the
