Language ‘War’ Festering at PSG

There is a growing concern in the Paris Saint-Germain squad regarding the lack of French used across the first team squad and club in general.

The super rich Ligue 1 giants boast one of the most diverse squads in all of European football, but this is now said to be having a knock-on effect with some of the cultural aspects of the team.

PSG, who currently top Ligue 1 with an eight point margin and sit a point clear in Group A of the Champions League,now find themselves in a position whereby the majority language within the club is not French and the language is fading out in the dressing room as a result, according to a report in Marca.

It claims that manager Mauricio Pochettino barely uses the French language at all, instead addressing his players instead primarily in his native Spanish or English.

While in England, Pochettino spoke with a translator throughout his time at Southampton and when he was approached by Tottenham, they told him he must speak English in public.

Now, some of his South American coaching staff are reported to have a good command of French, but it is not the go-to

language of the squad as a whole and the players now realise this.

A long-standing tradition of the PSG hierarchy was to ensure new signings took up the learning of the language so as to converse with team-mates both socially and in a professional capacity, though this is said to have stopped.

Star man Kylian Mbappe, playing in the capital of his home country, reportedly makes an effort to speak Spanish or English.

Fellow English speakers such as Idrissa Gueye and Abdou Diallo do likewise, switching from their preferred tongue.

Neymar, Angel Di Maria and Keylor Navas are said to never use French, but they do understand it.

New arrivals, such as Lionel Messi and Nuno Mendes, however, have no knowledge of French and still to more familiar languages to converse.

Sportsmail reported back in 2014 that when Pochettino was approached by Tottenham while Southampton manager, they underlined the importance of him speaking English.

Pochettino was known to speak English in private with his Saints squad but used an interpreter for his media commitments to articulate himself more precisely.