Aurélien Tchouaméni: Meet the French soccer star everyone is talking about.
Aurélien Tchouaméni has been in and out of the French national team for the past five years or so, but he’s made it very clear that he wants the World Cup to be his last; only once in his career has he made such a public proclamation. As a player, he has been considered a revelation since he joined the French team at 17, winning the World Cup with France in 1998, having played for the U.S. in the 1994 and 1998 World Cup tournaments, and making more than two-dozen appearances for the French national team. As a player, he is also extremely outspoken and outspoken on many social and political topics, something that he doesn’t always show on the pitch. The biggest knock on him is that he is “selfish and lacks class,” but that criticism has often been over-honest. One could easily read Tchouaméni’s comments as an attempt to curry favor with his sponsors, who pay him a million dollars per year.
After a recent conversation with the French journalist Sylvain Chavanne, I learned that the real reason for Tchouaméni’s decision to retire from the national team was his deep distrust of President Hollande and other members of his government, whose actions he deems undemocratic. He told Chavanne that despite the fact that France had won the right to host the 2014 World Cup in that country, and with four years left before the competition would come, he could “no longer be part of a team that refuses to respect its own constitution, its ethics, and its honor… I know I’ll be remembered only for my career, and I’m starting to fear I won’t be remembered for any of my contributions outside of that.�