Diallo, the player accused of instigating attack on her team-mate: ‘I’m not a devil, I’m not an angel either’

Aminata Diallo and Kheira Hamraoui got out of the same police car. The Paris Saint-Germain team-mates had been escorted a little further from Versailles police station to avoid the swarming photographers. When Diallo stepped out of the vehicle, her trainers had no laces, and her long dark braids hung loose.

“They take away your shoelaces and hair ties because there are people who can’t stand it and try to commit suicide,” she says. “My first spell in custody felt like a long time. It’s horrible, it’s the fact of being on your own inside four walls, the smells from the toilet, and not having a sense of time.

“It was a horrible day but I had the conviction I was going to get out.”

France midfielder Diallo was arrested in connection with a brutal attack on her friend and team-mate Hamraoui in Chatou, west of Paris, on November 4, 2021. On the journey home from a team dinner, men in balaclavas had stopped Diallo’s club-issued Toyota Corolla. One hit Hamraoui with an iron bar, targeting her legs, while the other held Diallo to the steering wheel.

Although initially released without charge, 10 months later in September 2022, Diallo and five men were arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy. According to a police report, Diallo instigated the attack on Hamraoui, her motive being “violent sporting jealousy”. Diallo maintains she is innocent; the five men say they acted on the orders of a person they will not or cannot name.

In a three-hour interview in French for this article, part of which features in a BBC podcast series (Sport’s Strangest Crimes: A French Football Scandal), Diallo recounts her side of the story. She is speaking via video call from Saudi Arabia, where she now plays for Al Nassr, the same club as Cristiano Ronaldo. She is still under judicial supervision, forbidden to have contact with anyone connected to the case and she could be summoned by the judge at any point.

In a calm and controlled way, Diallo answers questions on every aspect of the case: the who, what, when, why and how; combing over details and accusations. She recalls times and dates with precision, her responses are confident but seemingly not scripted and she does not mince her words. Only once is there a softening of the strong exterior when she pauses, her voice shakes and her lip trembles before gathering herself.

Hamraoui’s lawyer declined an interview request to respond to what Diallo says on her client’s behalf.

It is not up to us to decide if Diallo is innocent or guilty. But any verdict will define the rest of her life and, whether they like it or not, Hamraoui and Diallo, once bound by football and friendship, will be forever entwined by this violent attack.

In the summer of 2021, Hamraoui and Diallo went on holiday together to Zanzibar, sharing a hotel room and even a bed. It was not the first time they had been away together. There had been previous trips to Dubai and Mexico and they had many friends in common.

Diallo, now 29, says she had a “pretty friendly relationship” with Hamraoui, now 34, who was also a France international midfielder. “Everyone knows that,” she says. “Just because of what happened doesn’t mean I’m going to say she wasn’t my friend. We had moments of friendship and I liked her but she wasn’t a close friend.”

When the pair returned to PSG after their holiday, they got to know each other even better. Along with new signing Sakina Karchaoui, they stayed in the same hotel together for more than a month before the club found them apartments, going for dinner on numerous occasions and car-sharing frequently.

Diallo and Hamraoui started alongside one another in midfield wins against Guingamp (6-0) and Dijon (3-0) in October 2021. “I remember those matches,” says Diallo. “There was a lot of symbiosis. The relationship on the pitch was pretty good.”

Days later, they drove together to the team-bonding dinner at Le Chalet des Iles restaurant in Bois de Boulogne, west of central Paris, and then got back into Diallo’s car to return home. That was the night everything changed.

Chalet des Iles

“After I dropped off Sakina Karchaoui,” Diallo says. “We carried on along the street and then after about 100 metres, I remember there was a big white truck. When we drew level with it, two guys in balaclavas got out and came right up to my bonnet. I couldn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t as if I saw them coming from far away and could accelerate.

“They were right by my car immediately. That was the moment of panic. One came from my side, the other came from Kheira’s side. I don’t remember if they were the ones who opened the door or if they told us to open it. Then someone got out of the car, I don’t know if he told her to get out or if he pulled her, but he got her out of the car.

“Then, on my side, the one who was dealing with me tried to hit me and I tried to defend myself. Then he insulted me, he called me a whore. He kept saying: “Give me the money!” And I had my bag and my phone on the side, but he didn’t take anything. I thought it was very odd they didn’t steal from us.

“I was in the car but the car door on her (Hamraoui’s) side was open. So I could hear her screaming and he hit her with a bar. At the same time, he insulted her. He called her a whore. Then he told her: ‘So you sleep with married men, do you?’ And he hit her.”

“Despite my cries of pain, I think I hear the words ‘married man’,” Hamraoui would later write in her book. “These words have been dictated, imposed on him. I can feel it, it’s obvious. He’s reciting them. He left, then came back, because he’d forgotten to say them.”

Diallo continues matter-of-factly. “It went on for about 30 seconds, it was pretty quick. Well, when it’s an assault, it seems like forever. It’s tough to remember all the details. It was very, very fast. Kheira got up and got back into my car. She was screaming. her hand was covered in blood, really badly hurt.”

Hamraoui was left with deep large purple bruises and an open wound on the back of her right thigh, gashes to her right shin and the palm of her right hand, which required stitches. According to the public prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte, the men said they were told to restrain or lightly assault Diallo to increase the credibility of the attack.

“I was shocked,” says Diallo. “I drove forward all the way to the end of the street. I parked. I called Sakina straight away. She ran to join us. Kheira was texting a lot, she called a friend of hers who is a bodyguard. I did a U-turn in the street and we tried to find the nearest hospital.”

Immediately after the attack, Diallo said “she felt sorry” for Hamraoui, whom she describes as being “very scared”. But Diallo’s stance changed when allegations of Hamraoui having an affair with a married man began to surface. Hamraoui and her lawyer have always declined to comment on the player’s private life.

Diallo and some mutual friends went to Hamraoui’s apartment the evening after the attack. “Now I’m starting to get a bit annoyed,” she says. “At that moment, her private life put me in danger… I had a little less empathy.”

Aminata Diallo (left, No 20) and Kheira Hamraoui (centre, No 14) after playing for Paris Saint-Germain in October 2021 (Haflidi Breidfjord/UEFA via Getty Images)

Hamraoui returned to her hometown of Roubaix, north of France, to see her family — with PSG citing “personal reasons” for her absence on Tuesday, November 9, 2021. But Diallo played in front of 18,000 fans as PSG thumped Real Madrid in Europe’s elite club competition. At this point, the attack was not public knowledge.

“Everything was on the up,” says Diallo. “But then the nightmare started the day after that match.”

Diallo returned home from the game at 2am and, to her shock, four hours later the police came knocking, confiscating Diallo’s two phones and laptop.

“It was light, they said things like, ‘You’re in a bad situation’,” she says. “After that, they were quite nice. They didn’t handcuff me. Even on the way, they offered me croissants. They stopped at a bakery and asked me if I wanted something to eat. During all my interviews, they were quite friendly — they always offered me something to eat and drink.”

Diallo is Muslim and the police allowed her to receive halal food via the delivery service Uber Eats, but she couldn’t stomach a lot. The stench of the toilet in her cell was too much and her mind was elsewhere. She just wanted to get out.

The police station to which Diallo was taken

At this point, Diallo’s animosity towards Hamraoui grew. “When I was taken into custody, I began to feel no empathy for her at all — none at all. By then, what had happened to her was the last of my worries. The only thing that hurt me the most and I was thinking about was my mum and family had cried.

“She (Hamraoui) was the one who started accusing me, making things up to incriminate me.” Hamraoui’s lawyer denies this claim, adding that Hamraoui only thought Diallo was involved in the attack, rather than being the instigator.

After 36 hours, Diallo was released without charge. She expected to return to team training but, like Hamraoui, PSG told her she had to train alone. The club provided the pair with bodyguards and psychological support.

“It was even worse than police custody (training alone),” Diallo says. “I took it as a bigger injustice. That was the hardest and most unfair moment for me. To have that sanction when I hadn’t done anything.

“They wanted us to come back at the same time, so that she could reintegrate into the group in the best way possible. But in fact, I already held her responsible for what had happened to me. And I was the one who was supposed to make it easier for her to come back? No, I didn’t agree with it and it didn’t go down well with me. I didn’t deal with it well, but what was I supposed to do? I had to accept it.”

On January 23, 2022, the pair eventually started together again in a 5-0 league win over Saint-Etienne.

“On the pitch, we knew what was what,” says Diallo. “When we had to pass the ball to each other or communicate, we did.”

But off the pitch? “I didn’t even look at her,” says Diallo. “For me, she didn’t exist. So there were no problems.”

Police wiretaps after the attack noted Diallo’s apparent animosity towards Hamraoui. In April 2022, Diallo was recorded saying: “She says she’s a victim of assault, no one gives a shit… did she die? Mate, nothing happened to her, she didn’t even spend a day in hospital, they missed her — break her face, she deserved it.”

“I wasn’t saying what happened to her during the assault wasn’t serious,” Diallo explains. “What I said was that, considering everything she was doing, she hadn’t been hit enough.”

Lawyer Said Harir holds up images of client Hamraoui’s injuries in November 2021

Diallo compares it to parents realising they have not sufficiently disciplined an unruly child.

“That wasn’t to say she deserved more beatings for the assault, of course not. It was months later, because she kept on wronging us (Diallo and PSG team-mates). You have to understand that, at that moment, we feel like victims of her.

“People think she was hospitalised (for a long time), that she didn’t have the use of her legs for a while. I’m not taking anything away from the severity of her assault (Hamraoui couldn’t play football for several weeks). But don’t overdo it. So when I said that, it was because I was annoyed with her about the things she was doing that I thought were wrong.

“It (the wiretap) was in April in my private conversations… that’s my way, using familiar language. It isn’t pretty, I agree with that. But it doesn’t mean I wished they had hit her more. Given the animosity between me and her at that time and the accusations for which I held her responsible, perhaps it was a tiny bit human.

“Do I have regrets about what I said? Honestly, no. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but if I had to do it again, I would. The context was removed and so I’m made to look like a bad person. But at that point, I’m a victim too.”

When her PSG contract expired in June 2022, Diallo decided to stop playing football, describing the situation as “hell”. “I was sick of football, the system, it was one injustice too many,” she says. “I wanted to have as little as possible to do with football.”

Eight months on from her release from police custody, Diallo did not think she would be charged in connection with the attack. “When you know you’re innocent, you never think you’re going to be investigated and put in prison.”

But on September 14, 2022, Diallo knew something was up. She had flown to Manchester to watch Manchester City beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 in the Champions League with her friend and then-Manchester United player Aissatou Tounkara. Just before she returned to France she read in the media that the police had arrested five young men in connection with the attack on Hamraoui.

“I know how it works,” she says. “The little people are never going to report the people who sent them. I’m thinking: ‘F***, am I going to be involved?’ And at 6am on September 16, they came.”

Diallo was re-arrested and then charged with three counts of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy. She was detained at the Versailles women’s prison for four days on remand.

“But (when) I’m told I’m going to be remanded in custody and go to prison because of the accusations, oh yes, that was a shock for me,” she says. “I thought: ‘You can’t put me in prison based on assumptions, there’s no proof against me.’”

Diallo was released and put under strict judicial supervision. “It was unbearable because you have loved ones, people who fear for you,” she says. “I have a thick skin, I can take criticism and judgement, I know who I am and I don’t give a damn. But what I find hard to forgive, and will never forgive, is the damage done to my family.”

She has since been granted modified bail conditions at the request of her lawyer, hence why she can play abroad, but her fear of going to prison and serving a sentence — which could be up to 10 years for criminal conspiracy — is very real.

“It’s terrible,” she says. “I try to think about it as little as possible, I keep thinking it’s impossible for me to be convicted. But of course, I could be. It’s a possibility.”

There is no going back to how things were before the attack. There has been too much damage, too many lives affected, and relationships beyond repair.

“It has changed me,” says Diallo. “I’m not a devil, I’m not an angel either. After experiencing this injustice, there’s a lot of hatred, violence towards those who accused me. I had to rediscover my peace.

“When I was released from custody, luckily I had lots of people I’m close to, but also people I didn’t necessarily know…” — Diallo’s voice starts to break and for the first time she becomes emotional, she bites her lower lip and lowers her gaze — “… who supported me and gave me a lot of love, and who saved me from this hatred that could have eaten away at me and turned me into a nasty person. There’s also my faith.

“Maybe I used to do things I shouldn’t have done, talked in a way I shouldn’t have talked.

“I’ve always been a kind person with a good heart. But I’m not perfect and if you were my enemy, I wasn’t going to be nice to you, that’s for sure. The way I talked, it was never for nothing, it’s because I felt attacked. I’m not a mean person. Now, I just hope there is a favourable ending for me.”

Whether the case goes to trial is still unknown. All Diallo can do now is wait.

This interview by The Athletic’s Charlotte Harpur is part of a BBC podcast series exploring this story. You can listen to Sport’s Strangest Crimes: A French Football Scandal on BBC Sounds.

(Top photo: Aurelien Meunier – PSG/PSG via Getty Images)