Former Manchester United star Patrice Evra has been handed a 12-month suspended prison sentence for abandoning his family according to Le Parisien.
Le Parisien report that Evra’s sentence is suspended for two years, but he’s been ordered to pay his wife €4,000 for moral damages and €2,000 for legal costs.
The report adds that the former France international is said to owe €969,000 after abandoning his wife and their two children for more than two years.
Evra handed suspended sentence
Nathalie Dubois, the lawyer for the civil party said following the decision that she hoped Evra now realised he wasn’t above the law.
“I hope that, thanks to this decision, Patrice Evra will finally understand that he is not above the law and that you cannot abandon your wife and children overnight,” she told Le Parisien.
“Even more so when they met when they were 15 and she followed him all over the world to support his football career.”
Evra’s lawyer Jerome Boursican has said that the former Premier League winner “disputes some of the facts,” and would be appealing the decision.
“Mr Patrice Evra filed an appeal, knowing that he provided his wife with an apartment, a house with a swimming pool in the south of France and that he lent her almost two million euros for her daily life. A sum that she refuses to return, which is the reason for this trial,” Boursican said.
This isn’t the first time Evra has got himself in trouble with the authorities, back in February 2023 he was fined €1,000 for making a homophobic insult and had to pay €1,500 in damages to two civil party associations, as well as €1,00 in Lawyers’ fees to both parties.
Evra had an incredibly decorated career playing for the likes of United and Italian giants Juventus and earning 81 caps for France.
The 43-year-old spent the bulk of his career at Old Trafford where he won five Premier League titles, the Champions League, three League Cups and the Club World Cup.
Evra also had success in Italy winning Serie A on three occasions and the Italian cup twice, but his France career ultimately culminated in not winning anything despite appearing in multiple World Cups and European Championships.