23rd December, 2022
The French FA has launched an official complaint after World Cup-winning Argentina goalkeeper Emi Martinez taunted beaten France hero Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final but that was not enough as Argentina bagged their third global crown courtesy of a penalty shootout.
The Albiceleste were subsequently involved in wild celebrations in Buenos Aires, and Martinez reignited his one-sided feud with the Frenchman after he was pictured holding a Mbappe doll next to Lionel Messi on the team’s open-top bus parade, having also mocked the Paris Saint-Germain superstar in the dressing room immediately after Argentina’s victory in the final.
This led the French Football Federation (FFF) to lodge a complaint with the Argentine FA as they deemed Martinez’s celebrations “shocking” and “abnormal”.
Speaking in an interview with Ouest-France, FFF president Noel Le Graet said: “We have launched different procedures. It is very shocking. These are boys who have given the best of themselves for the France team to succeed. It is important that we support them. I wrote to my counterpart from the Argentine Football Association. I find these excesses abnormal in the context of sports competition, and I find it difficult to understand. It goes too far. Mbappe’s behaviour was exemplary.”
Martinez had earlier taken a dig at Mbappe when he accused him of “knowing nothing about football” in response to the PSG player’s comments that European nations were better prepared for the World Cup because they play “high-level matches all the time”.
Lautaro Martinez also argued that what he said was “unfair”, while ex-Brazil coach Tite sniped back at him by saying that Brazil doesn’t have “Azerbaijan to play”.