The Sanhaji Case and Zidane's Disrupted Start with the French National Team

There are mornings at Clairefontaine when footsteps matter more than the whistle. The training complex sits in the Rambouillet forest, about forty kilometres southwest of Paris, where everything from meals to buses to bedrooms to guest lists is handled by a logistics team. The man who led that team for more than two decades was Mohamed Sanhaji.

This month, Sanhaji is not there. He is barred from Clairefontaine, barred from contacting any staff member or player of the French national team. Not because of an internal decision by the French Football Federation (FFF), but because of a criminal investigation conducted by French prosecutors. A man who had been attached to every trip, every training session, every press conference of the French national team since 2026 suddenly became a name struck from the list.

"Getting Granit Xhaka's name wrong three times taught me to read people before I write." In 2026, in Kaliningrad, I mispronounced Granit Xhaka's name three times in the first half and was booed by Swiss fans. I stayed in Russia for an extra month, rented a room, reviewed footage, and noted the correct pronunciation of every player. The lesson that year was not about how embarrassed I was, but about understanding that what happens around a match is often as important as what happens inside it. The absence of a logistics official can say more about a team than a tactical meeting.

This is the start Zinedine Zidane did not expect. He took the France head coach job after a long wait, with a programme already mapped out in his mind. The first camp was supposed to be a milestone, the moment people judged his style, his philosophy, and how he would connect a new generation of players with the legacy of the years before. But before a ball was kicked, a legal file forced him to confront a question no coach wants to hear: how does my team actually operate?

Tactically, the context here is nearly empty. No formation, no pressing system, no expected-goals data, no possession metrics. All we have is a rare administrative-judicial event invading the training ground. For fans, this may be a footnote to the match. For those who have stood long enough on the touchline, it is a mirror reflecting the entire structure of a national team.

In modern football, people talk about the head coach as if he controls everything. But a national team operates very differently from a club. There is no owner writing cheques, no sporting director negotiating contracts, no long-term deal. There is only a federation, an administrative apparatus, and a logistics staff that travels with the team through every camp. Within that apparatus, the security and logistics role is not secondary. The security officer decides which players get access, who enters the room, who sits near the team. The logistics officer decides meal times, rest times, boarding times, and even the smallest details such as the temperature of the training room. When that person disappears, the void shows even when no one speaks of it.

Mohamed Sanhaji was one of the most discreet figures yet present everywhere. He did not give interviews, did not appear at press conferences, but from 2026 to now, almost every trip of Les Bleus bore his fingerprints. Players were used to seeing him before the coach each morning. French fans might not know his face, but the national team delegation did. He was the kind of figure whose importance becomes clear only when he is gone.

According to publicly available information, Sanhaji is under investigation on multiple charges: corruption, influence peddling, embezzlement of public funds, and fraud. In an ordinary context, this might be an administrative case with little connection to football. But the crux lies in the fact that the case involves a donation from Kylian Mbappé to security officials of the French national team. That donation is the centre of the alleged "irregularities" being investigated.

For a player at the peak of his career like Mbappé, this is an unwelcome detail. He has not been charged, has not been accused of anything specific, but his name appears in a legal file investigating financial management. In modern football, a player's commercial image sometimes matters more than his form. A single line in a court document can become a headline across the press within hours.

What makes this story notable is Zidane's decision. According to sources at L'Équipe, he wanted to keep Sanhaji in his post. He believed in loyalty, and perhaps believed that an ongoing investigation was not sufficient grounds to remove a man who had served the national team for over two decades. The FFF initially agreed to keep him, but in the end judicial measures forced a change. As a result, Sanhaji was removed from Clairefontaine and banned from contacting anyone in the team.

This is where I want to pause. When the news reaches fans, many immediately ask: what will Zidane do on the pitch? Which formation will he choose? Will he continue his predecessor's legacy or change everything? But those questions overlook a simple reality: Zidane's first camp does not begin with tactics, but with piecing together his own technical and administrative staff.

That is the detail I consider most important. A new head coach of a national team needs time not only to know the players, but also to understand the operating structure around him. Who handles the hotels? Who decides the flight schedule? Who keeps in touch with referees, the medical team, the media? In Zidane's case, one of the people holding those threads has been removed from the system.

If I had to pick one word to describe this situation, I would choose "restructuring". While all of France waits for a tactical unveiling, Zidane is forced to spend the precious early hours of his tenure solving a personnel problem he did not cause. He is not to blame, but he bears the consequences.

There is something that outside analysis often overlooks: the absence of a long-serving logistics official is not merely the loss of one person. It is the loss of an implicit system the whole team has grown used to relying on. A security officer knows who needs to be watched, who needs priority, who needs to be separated when an incident occurs. When such a person leaves, no document has time to record all those habitual operations. The replacement will need months, perhaps years, to reach the same fluency.

Here, I recall my own story. "An empty stadium, a full heart — that year I understood why I sit here." In 2026, when the league was suspended due to the pandemic, Sichuan Jiuniu did not play and players went three months without wages. Thanks to relationships built over years of watching training, I understood each player's circumstances. When you are close enough, you learn that a team is not just eleven players on the pitch. It is a whole network of people operating behind the scenes that television never shows.

Back to France. What is striking is that the FFF did not change its decision until the law forced it. This is not the first time a football federation has come under legal pressure over personnel. But what stands out here is the mixture of two things hard to separate: sporting choice and governance responsibility.

For years, European football federations have tended to handle internal matters by keeping quiet or waiting. This thinking stems from an assumption: if nothing big is happening, don't make noise. But in the modern context, when the media can track every court document and fans demand accountability, a federation's silence can become a bigger risk than acting early.

One detail in the file deserves closer analysis: Mbappé's donation. This is the point I consider most sensitive, because it connects a star's personal money to a federation's management apparatus. In modern football, the line between personal gifts and sensitive transactions is often blurred. A player donating to a team's security group may be an act of gratitude, but if the money passes through opaque channels, it becomes a serious legal issue.

This does not mean Mbappé is charged. As far as we know, he is not among those under criminal investigation. But in the media context, simply having his name appear alongside words like "investigation", "irregularity" and "public funds" can affect his commercial image in ways no one controls. This is a risk every modern football star must live with.

Notably, throughout the development of this case, no technical data has been released. No formations, no statistics, no tactical models. All analysts can do is speculate about the impact of an administrative event on a team. This is a phenomenon I have seen in many places, but rarely so clearly. Football sometimes operates as a two-tier system: the surface tier is what happens on the pitch, the deep tier is what happens in the offices. When the deep tier shakes, the surface tier may show no sign for weeks, but people sense the change.

In Zidane's case, the biggest question is not which formation he will use, but how much stability he can rebuild in the personnel apparatus before the international season begins. A national team only has a few days of camp per window. Time is the scarcest resource. Every hour spent rearranging logistics is an hour not spent building the squad.

This is where I want to offer a counterintuitive angle. Most headlines call this "Zidane's turbulent start". That framing puts Zidane at the centre of the story, as if he were the protagonist of a tragedy. But on closer inspection, Zidane is merely a blameless participant. The problem was caused by the FFF's governance apparatus, through personnel and financial decisions Zidane was not trained to oversee.

The truth is that what is happening to the French national team is not a story about a coach, but a story about how a federation manages the boundary between sport and administration. Zidane must deal with the consequences, but he is not the cause. The media's focus on him reflects an old habit: we like to personalise systemic problems, because personal stories are easier to tell than structural ones.

This leads to a second blind spot. When a legal case occurs within a national team, many automatically think of the impact on players. Will they be distracted? Will they lose focus? This is a fair question. But few ask the reverse: did these players know about the case before it hit the press? And if so, how did they feel when a man they had seen for years suddenly vanished?

I have seen a similar dynamic in another context. When a club has long-serving people — doctors, logistics staff, cooks — the relationship between them and the players is often more than work. Some players remember the names of the physio's children. Some call the logistics officer when facing personal difficulties. When such a person is removed from the system for legal reasons, the players' reaction cannot be measured by data. It lives in the silences of conversations, in the questions not asked.

This is where I return to my own story. "Footsteps on the pitch do not lie, as long as you stand on the touchline long enough." Over years of watching teams, I have learned that the most important signals are not in the scoreboard. They are in the pace at which players walk onto the training pitch, in the distance between small groups during breaks, in conversations cut short when a stranger approaches. A healthy team not only plays well, but operates smoothly behind the spotlight.

The Sanhaji case is a test for the FFF. If the federation responds quickly, transparently and professionally, the story can close within months. If it continues to hesitate, allowing details to leak gradually through the media, the story will drag on and erode trust. In either case, the impact on the national team is not technical but environmental.

According to public information, Sanhaji's lawyer has appealed the judicial measures imposed on him. This is an important development, because it shows the case is not closed. If the appeal succeeds, some restrictions may be relaxed, but that does not mean everything returns to normal. In criminal cases involving public office, time is the most damaging factor, even when the final outcome favours the accused.

What I find notable is how the information was released. The specific charges — corruption, influence peddling, embezzlement of public funds, fraud — were brought by prosecutors, not by the media. This is an important point. Not every piece of news about a national team staff member carries the same weight. When the source is a judicial body, credibility is far higher than internal rumour.

In this context, the question is not whether Zidane is affected, but how long and to what degree that impact will last. If the case is resolved within weeks, the impact may be only temporary personnel decisions. If it drags on for months, Zidane will have to build a new apparatus under conditions of instability, and that could affect how the French national team prepares for international tournaments.

I want to add one more thing about how European football federations operate. For decades, these federations have tended to protect their personnel against external accusations. This thinking stems from a legitimate reason: a federation needs stability to function. But when that protection crosses the line of accountability, it becomes a risk. The FFF initially kept Sanhaji, perhaps believing the case was not serious enough to warrant change. Later, when judicial measures forced action, they had to change reactively.

This is an important lesson for any federation. In an age when information spreads faster than administrative decisions, waiting can do more harm than acting early. People can forgive a mistake corrected in time. They find it hard to forgive prolonged hesitation.

There is another aspect I consider worth discussing: Zidane's role in the decision to keep Sanhaji. According to L'Équipe, Zidane wanted to keep him. This is an understandable choice from a personal perspective. A new coach often wants to retain experienced people who understand the system. Sanhaji was one of the figures closest to the national team for over two decades. Keeping him could be seen as a way to reduce risk during a transition.

But from a governance perspective, this decision raises questions about priorities. When a coach prioritises loyalty to a staff member over the federation's reputational risk, he is betting on an assumption: that the case will not escalate. In this case, that assumption proved wrong. Judicial measures were applied, and Zidane was forced to accept a reality he did not want.

This is the most counterintuitive point in the whole story. Keeping a loyal staff member is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of a coach who understands the value of stability. But in some contexts, short-term stability can be traded for long-term risk. Zidane chose the harder path: protecting a man he trusted, while knowing the decision could be criticised. This is the kind of choice outsiders often misjudge, because they see only the outcome, not the process.

I once witnessed a similar situation at a small club in China. A coach kept his assistant after the assistant was investigated for past wrongdoing. The team dropped points in the first few games, but in the end internal stability helped them through a difficult period. That story does not prove that keeping people is always right. It only shows that personnel decisions in football always have multiple dimensions, and those dimensions rarely appear in the statistics.

In the context of the French national team, the impact of this case will depend on three factors. First, the speed of judicial resolution. Second, how the FFF handles communications. Third, how Zidane rebuilds his personnel apparatus in the shortest possible time.

As for the first factor, no one can predict. Criminal cases in France can take months, even years, to conclude. During that time, football must go on. The French national team must still camp, still play, still prepare for international tournaments. A case hanging over the personnel apparatus can create an atmosphere outsiders find hard to sense, but insiders feel clearly.

As for the second factor, the FFF faces a strategic choice. It can stay silent and hope the case fades. Or it can proactively release information, explain decisions, and build a transparent narrative. In the modern media environment, the second option is usually more effective, even if it causes some initial discomfort. Silence creates room for speculation, and speculation is often worse than the truth.

As for the third factor, Zidane will have to do something he did not plan: restructure his personnel apparatus while preparing for matches. This is a challenge many coaches have faced, but rarely in their very first days. How he handles this period will shape not only the team's results but also his personal credibility in the eyes of players and leadership.

If I had to summarise the whole story in one sentence, I would say this: Zidane arrived at the French national team to build a squad, but had to start by repairing a system he did not break. This is not the first time a coach has been swept into matters beyond his technical remit. In modern football, the line between pitch and boardroom is increasingly blurred. A coach manages not only players, but also relationships with the federation, the media, sponsors, and sometimes the judiciary.

Notably, throughout this period, no information suggests the case has directly affected Zidane's tactical plans. This may be a positive sign. It suggests Zidane and his staff remain focused on the football, while administrative matters are handled at another level. If that continues, the French national team may get through this difficult period without major damage to results.

But at the same time, it may also be a warning sign. In many cases, administrative problems do not bite immediately but accumulate over time. Instability in logistics staff can lead to small errors in travel, schedules, room assignments. Such errors may go unrecorded, but they affect the team's psychology.

In football, people often speak of "team culture" as something abstract, hard to define. But team culture is actually built from very concrete details: who sits next to whom at meals, who is responsible for what, who has a voice in small decisions. When a long-serving person leaves, those details change, and the change cannot be measured by data but can be felt in the air.

The next three months will be a crucial period for Zidane and the French national team. If the first matches go well, the Sanhaji story may fade into the past. If results fall short, that story will be recalled as a ready-made explanation. This is how football media usually operates: it needs a story, and it will choose the one that fits the result.

What I want to emphasise is that in either case, the Sanhaji story should not be used as an excuse. If the French national team plays well, that is down to the players and coaching staff. If it plays poorly, that too is their responsibility. The administrative case is a factor in the context, not the cause of every problem. Fans have the right to demand clarity in both evaluation and attribution.

"Footsteps on the pitch do not lie, as long as you stand on the touchline long enough." What I have learned from years of watching teams is this: the final result is never decided by a single event. It is decided by how a team responds to that event. Zidane's France is at the very first moment of a long chain of reactions. We will have to wait to see how they choose to move forward.

And this is what I want to leave with the reader. When we look at a team, we usually see only what happens in ninety minutes. But behind those ninety minutes are hundreds of people, thousands of small decisions, and sometimes legal stories that have nothing to do with football. Understanding that is understanding why football is both simple and complex.

The question I ask myself, and those following the French national team in this period: are we evaluating a team, or are we evaluating an apparatus? And when the two conflict, which matters more?

In Zidane's case, the answer has not arrived. But how he handles the next three months may shape not only his tenure, but also how people view the role of a national team coach in modern football. A good coach does not only know how to set a line-up. He must also know how to stand firm when the system around him shakes.

Getting Xhaka's name wrong three times taught me that the mistake is not in what we say, but in not understanding enough about the person we are talking about. With the French national team right now, perhaps the most important thing is not predicting match results, but understanding correctly an apparatus forced to repair itself. When we understand correctly, we can judge fairly. When we misunderstand, every conclusion becomes guesswork.

I will keep watching. Not to find a sensational headline, but to record the moment a team learns to operate without one of the people who held it together for over two decades.