Paris Saint-Germain Women’s Kheira Hamraoui has bravely relived last year’s ‘traumatic attack’ after a team meal after revealing she feared for her life when two masked men beat her legs with iron bars. 

Following a team meal on November 4, Hamraoui was travelling home as a passenger in a car driven by team-mate Aminata Diallo, before she was dragged from the car and beaten on the legs with an iron bar. 

Her legs were badly beaten and a police investigation followed.

Hamraoui has now chosen to open up on the vicious attack to French daily newspaper L’Equipe, explaining her fears as she lay on the pavement ‘screaming in pain’. 

Kheira Hamraoui (right) has opened up on her ‘traumatic’ attack last November when she was travelling home from a team meal with Aminata Diallo (left) before masked men attacked her.

‘I experienced an attack of unbelievable violence,’ she said. 

‘Two hooded strangers took me out of the car I was traveling in to hit me on the legs with iron bars. That night, I really thought I was going to stay there… I was screaming in pain. I tried to protect myself as much as possible. I have a very painful memory.’ 

Hamraoui’s story was soon making global headlines and she concedes that she was left ‘overwhelmed’ by the ‘media machine’ that ensued.   

‘I was completely lost, confused and overwhelmed by the events,’ she added. ‘It took me several days to come back to the surface, but twice as many problems came for me. Fresh from a traumatic episode, I felt that the weight of the media machine activated, I was caught in a storm.’ 

The storm Hamraoui refers too is the one that saw Diallo, the driver of the car that night, initially arrested on suspicion of organising the attack. 

The two players are rivals for the same position at PSG, but while Diallo, who always denied allegations against her, was held for 35 hours of questioning she was later released without charge. 

Hamraoui was attacked by masked men having been dragged from Diallo’s car as they drove home from a team meal (pictured right: the heavy bruising and cuts sustained on her leg)  

Asked to reflect on the strained relationship with Diallo in light of the night in question, Hamraoui has no interest in participating in what she terms the ‘media court’.  

‘One thing is certain, I was the victim of a terrible attack,’ she added.

The scrutiny around Hamraoui’s attack saw a multitude of evidence strands come to light, including that the SIM card in Hamraoui’s phone was registered to former Barcelona star Eric Abidal.

He was Barcelona’s sporting director from 2018 to 2020, during which time Hamraoui was with the women’s team. 

 It emerged her phone SIM was registered to Eric Abidal (left) and it later emerged through Abidal’s wife Hayet (right) that he admitted to an affair with Hamraoui as she filed for divorce

Abidal’s wife, Hayet, then issued a statement through her lawyers claiming her husband had admitted to an affair with Hamraoui and that divorce proceedings had been initiated. 

Hamraoui flatly denied that her relationship with Abidal had anything to do with the attack by the masked men.

She described it as a ‘smoke screen’ for the real reason behind what she continues to maintain was a deliberate ‘ambush’. 

In February, Hamraoui’s lawyer reportedly wrote a letter to senior figures at PSG, criticising the treatment of the midfielder and explaining that a number of players ‘have the effect of degrading the working conditions of my client’.  

Last month, L’Equipe reported that a man had been arrested and taken into custody as part of the investigation into the attack, as per Get French Football News. 

Source: L’Equipe

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