Removed from Zidane's staff after 48 hours, podiatrist Rétali cries foul

Marc Rétali spent only forty-eight hours in Zinédine Zidane’s staff. Appointed on August 13 to the new France coaching team, the Alsatian podiatrist was removed on August 15 by the French Football Federation (FFF), which blamed him for failing to respect his duty of discretion after giving an interview to a sports radio station just hours after his appointment was announced.

Rétali broke his silence on Friday in the pages of Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace and L’Alsace to contest the federation’s version. His central argument: he had not yet signed his contract when journalists approached him. “The French Football Federation said I hadn’t respected my duty of discretion, as if I hadn’t respected my contract. The problem is that I hadn’t yet signed my contract when journalists approached me,” he said, calling the episode a “formal injustice.”

While acknowledging that “recommendations for caution” had been made beforehand, he insists he did not interpret them as an absolute ban on speaking. A misstep without any intent to harm, he stresses, which did not justify permanent removal. “Even if I had made a mistake, it warranted a yellow card, a sanction, a reprimand, but not total exclusion,” he lamented.

With twenty years of experience at FC Sochaux and with several professional cycling teams — Cofidis, Groupama-FDJ, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale — Rétali believes he was deliberately “made an example of” to establish discipline in the new staff from the outset. He attributes the severity of the reaction to the exceptional media exposure generated by the Zidane name: “As soon as you talk about the France team and Zinédine Zidane, it gets quite a lot of amplification. It overwhelmed the people in charge.”

Beyond the missed opportunity with the France shirt, it is the moral and professional damage that now concerns the Alsatian. Judging the episode “damaging” to his image and his family, he says he wants to move on and focus on new projects.