Ligue 1: Angers coach resigns after inappropriate remarks

It's over

Ligue 1: Angers coach resigns after inappropriate remarks

It's over. Weakened by his sporting failure and the target of criticism after remarks deemed inappropriate while defending a player accused of touching, Abdel Bouhazama resigned from his post as coach of Angers. "Faced with media pressure and to preserve the club's image and the serenity of the locker room, Abdel Bouhazama announced to President Saïd Chabane that he had decided to leave his post," the club announced in a press release on Tuesday March 7.

No details were given immediately on his succession, while the red lantern team of Ligue 1, which has not won since September and has just been swept 5-0 in Montpellier, receives Toulouse on Sunday.

The coach, already criticized for his failure to turn the team around, was in the hot seat after remarks made during the pre-match chat on Sunday to boost the confidence of his defender Ilyes Chetti were revealed.

Abdel Bouhazama had established him, for only the third time this season, while the local press had revealed during the week that this player had recognized touching a young woman during an evening in a nightclub and that he would be tried in April. "It's not bad, we've all already touched girls," said the coach according to several sources cited by the daily newspapers Ouest-France and L'Équipe and confirmed by an AFP correspondent.

"Angers SCO unreservedly condemns the words spoken during the talk, even if they seem [more] to be clumsy than intended to trivialize sexist words," the club argued in its statement, assuring that Bouhazama apologized "to his colleagues, especially female ones".

Abdel ������������������ is no longer the coach of the professional team from this Tuesday, March 7. This decision was taken yesterday, by mutual agreement, between the management of Angers SCO and Abdel ������������������. ➡️ https://t.co/Qvv9sTtrBw pic.twitter.com/DEnc3AwgzL

But his words shocked in the locker room and far beyond. On Tuesday morning, Angers Town Hall Sports Deputy Charles Diers, a former club player, commented: "A Ligue 1 coach cannot express himself like this. An educator cannot talk like that. A man should not say such things. »

The remarks made all the more react as President Chabane has himself been prosecuted since 2020 for aggravated sexual assault after the accusations of six women who were his employees at the time of the facts.