PARIS (Reuters) - French club Paris Saint-Germain announced on Thursday that it had opened an internal investigation into charges against him of classifying young players during the search for talents to join them.
"We have launched an internal investigation," France Press quoted a source at the Paris Club as saying, quoting information from the French magazine "MediaBart", which was based on part of the leak of the "Football Lakes" launched by a group of European media last week.
According to MediaBart, the club's new talent search department has compiled data on young players with an ethnic classification, with reference to French nationals from North Africa, Africans, etc.
The source acknowledged the existence of documents of this kind, although this practice is illegal in France.
These documents have been adopted to evaluate young players the club may want to join, he said, adding that the practice provoked an internal debate in March 2014 at the club level, against the backdrop of the case of a 13-year-old player named Jan Gboho, The team played the game with Rouen in the northern Normandy region.
"Instead of saying it was French, it should have been said to be white, especially since all the players we were recommending were French," Serge Vournier, the surveyor who evaluated Gbagbo's performance in November 2013, was quoted as saying.
"Paris Saint Germain did not want us to attract players born in Africa, because it is not really possible to confirm their date of birth."
In the end, the Ivorian-born player joined the ranks of French club Rennes and the young man defended the French national team.
