Patrice Evra: Former France star opens up about sexual abuse in childhood
Former France World Cup winning captain says he was sexually abused as a child by a married family friend
When he was 11-years-old, he says he was abused by a family friend – when he was away on a family holiday. In a revealing interview, captain of France team that went on to win the 1998 World Cup and 2003 European Championship, spoke openly about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the friend, a father of five.
Captain Evra says in the interview that during the abuse he would return to the apartment of the boy who abused him time and again to try to get away the pain he was feeling.
He said in the interview: “I often returned with my friends to the apartment. The boy lived with his mother in another part of France.
“There wasn’t anything the teacher said that stopped us. We wouldn’t say anything. I always went back to the same apartment with my friends.
“I didn’t want to go back to his apartment.
“We didn’t know if he lived in the same apartment. He never said anything. My family was very religious and I had never been to his apartment before, we never even talked about anything.
“I would go there to see if he would come and talk to me. He never did. My mother never said anything, and neither did my father or brother, they didn’t know, so they were happy about what I was doing.
“We were young, we were boys with so much power and there was no reason why any of us should feel guilty.
“We were happy at the time, we didn’t know how to talk to each other, and we all didn’t know how to understand a thing.
“We were all very angry and had no idea what we were angry about.
“We had to talk. We were kids, we were boys with so much power. It was something that the teacher never really touched on.
“You could say that, we were