Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

People and Pop Culture

French Amateur Football Districts Want Zidane Headbutt Statue Removed

Six years after ZINEDINE ZIDANE's headbutt of MARCO MATERAZZI during the 2006 World Cup finals, "the gesture is still controversial," according to LE PARISIEN. The bronze statue immortalizing the gesture on display outside the Pompidou Center in Paris "has not pleased amateur football." National Association of Football Districts Chair MICHEL KEFF and about 30 district presidents wrote a letter demanding the statue by Algerian artist ADEL ABDESSEMED be removed immediately. The letter says the statue "displays the most regrettable gesture" of the "immense career" of Zidane. Furthermore it undermines "sporting ethics and the values carried by hundreds of thousands of youth workers" (LE PARISIEN, 10/22). In London, Adam Sage wrote that Abdessemed is "admired by some of France's wealthiest and most-influential figures," including billionaire industrialist FRANÇOIS PINAULT. The artist also "holds himself in high esteem." He wrote in his new biography, "It was not me who chose art, it was art who chose me. I try to enlighten the world" (LONDON TIMES, 10/23).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2012/10/24/People-and-Pop-Culture/Zizou.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2012/10/24/People-and-Pop-Culture/Zizou.aspx

CLOSE