Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King

by Philippe Auclair

  To start with, ‘irrevocable’ seemed to mean just that, despite the dramatic consequences tearing up his contract with Les Crocodiles would have on his family’s future. Mézy, deeply moved, explained that the club had accepted the compensation plan that Cantona had put forward – which was substantial, as there were still two-and-a-half years of his contract to run. Fully aware of the difficulties Éric would face in paying the equivalent of over £1m, Nîmes generously proposed a ‘sabbatical’; but Éric would have none of that. His heart told him that agreeing to an extended holiday from football would be akin to lying to himself and to a club he had a great deal of affection for, and his pride baulked at the idea that he couldn’t be a man of his word. This didn’t prevent Mézy’s conciliatory attitude from being subjected to fierce criticism, as Nîmes didn’t have the resources to let Éric go and forget about the money they had invested in him. Legally and morally, Cantona himself was personally responsible for the whole of that sum, and paying it would bankrupt him, despite the huge salaries he had received since arriving at OM in 1988. The building contractor he had instructed to build a house on the outskirts of Nîmes politely asked if he would be able to meet the costs. A few weeks later, soon after arriving in Sheffield, he told a France Football journalist that he had ‘a lot of money put aside’. That much was true, but there would have been very little left of it had he had to buy back his contract. Maybe his wish ‘to be poor’, which had shocked so many when he expressed it four years earlier, was not just the idle, irresponsible talk of a born provocateur after all.

  What would he do now? For the time being, he would enjoy his freedom. Draw. Walk along the beach of Le Grau-du-Roi, daydreaming of a future without football. Listen to music. The phone rang incessantly, but not once did he pick it up. This was a chance to become a painter, maybe. Or an actor? The celebrated French filmmaker Maurice Pialat, then at the height of his creative powers and commercial success, had thought of offering Cantona the role of Vincent van Gogh in a biopic of the painter, one of Albert’s and Éric’s heroes, but gave it to French pop singer Jacques Dutronc instead. So Éric went on holiday, as he and Isabelle had always planned to do. At which point Didier Fèvre must pick up the thread of the story, as he ought, as it is his story too, and a good one to boot.

  ‘Éric really wanted to stop after Nîmes,’ Didier told me. ‘He’d had enough. He was absolutely serious, and Isabelle was sick with worry, with good reason. We’d planned to spend two weeks skiing in the Alps and had booked a big chalet in Val d’Isère. By we, I mean Stéphane [Paille], his wife and child, Éric, Isabelle and Raphaël, myself and my family. The atmosphere was quite oppressive in the first week of the vacation. Isabelle would leave the dinner table, and I could hear her sobbing upstairs. Ten days before we were due to get together, I’d heard that Éric had thrown the ball at a referee, and that nobody had managed to contact him since then. I did – and he told me: “Don’t worry, we planned to go on holiday, we’ll go on holiday.” Every single sports journalist in France was on Canto’s tail. We had to find a way to send the dogs on the wrong scent. So we struck a deal with the resort’s radio station and the local media. No one was to know we were there – until the very last day, when Éric would give them a big interview. Believe it or not, they all kept their word.

  ‘To start with, we met at the airport of Lyon-Satolas, and we got into two Renaults Espace. Stéphane and I laid down our strategy during the trip. “We’ve got a fortnight ahead of us,” we told each other, “so let’s just have a family holiday for a week – then we’ll talk to him.” Éric’s lawyer, Jean-Jacques Bertrand, managed to join us for a day, and explained to Éric and Isabelle the consequences of breaking the contract with Nîmes. Isabelle was crying. Meanwhile, the whole of France was wondering where he was and what he was up to. It was in late December – Christmas time. So Éric dressed up as Santa Claus and distributed the presents. Stéphane and I kept quiet for a week. Then . . . it was like something out of a movie.’

  The three friends went skiing, as they had done most mornings. With his woolly hat and goggles on, no one could recognize Cantona on the pistes. With Éric safely seated between them, Stéphane and Didier made their way up the mountain in a ski-lift. Was there too much wind? Was it a mechanical failure? The ski-lift stopped midway, and remained stuck in the same spot for twenty minutes. Their feet dangling in the air, 30 metres above the snow, the two conspirators knew the opening they had waited for had come at last, and went on the attack.

  ‘Éric, you can’t do it. You don’t realize what this means,’ they said.

  ‘We shook him,’ Didier recalls, ‘but he didn’t say much there and then,’ which he and Paille saw as a sure sign that Éric was wavering. Nothing more was said until the afternoon, when, back in the village, the trio passed by a telephone booth. This was the second opportunity they had been waiting for – no mobile phones were available at the time, of course, and no line had been installed in the chalet the three families shared. Didier counted the former St Étienne and France striker Dominique Rocheteau among his friends. ‘The Green Angel’ (as every journalist called him because of his almost babyish curls and the colour of the Stéphanois jersey) had tried his luck in music after his retirement from the game, before switching to the more lucrative occupation of football agent, a role he played for David Ginola and the FC Nantes international striker Reynald Pedros. Ringing him would be the first of many steps, but also a decisive one, as a ‘yes’ from Éric, who was standing outside the booth’s open door, would mean that he also said ‘yes’ to football again. Cantona agreed to the call: ‘OK, fine, let’s do it.’

  Luckily, Rocheteau hadn’t left his office yet, and Didier could explain the whole situation to him. ‘Éric is ready to resume his career,’ he said, ‘but he doesn’t want to play in France ever again.’ He wanted to play – in Japan.

  Didier could see the expression of bewilderment on my face as he recounted these events in a London pub. ‘I know, this sounds unlikely,’ he laughed, ‘but that is exactly what happened. Japanese clubs paid very good wages and, just as importantly, you can’t go much further than Japan if you want to leave France behind you. Non?’ Rocheteau took it in his stride, and promised he would make enquiries. Could they call him again in twenty-four hours, towards the end of the afternoon? Yes, they could. They would have to go down to the village anyway, to pick up an order from a local charcutier, who had been asked to prepare a huge dish of choucroute for their evening meal. ‘I’ll never forget the scene,’ Didier said. ‘The mounds of sauerkraut, the sausages . . . and the two of us cramped up in the phone booth, talking to Rocheteau . . .’

  The agent had bad news and good news. The bad news first. The Japanese season was coming to a close in a matter of weeks, and no J-League club was looking to add to their squad at such a late stage in the football year. ‘Wait a second, I’ll tell Éric,’ Didier said. And so he did. ‘Really? Ah, merde!’ was Cantona’s answer. But Rocheteau hadn’t quite finished: ‘On the other hand, there might be something interesting in England.’ ‘Oh,’ Didier went, ‘Éric – there might be something interesting in England!’ His friend’s reaction was not exactly ecstatic: ‘Oooohhh . . . well . . . allez. Yes.’

  ‘I know it sounds crazy,’ Didier told me, ‘but I swear that this is exactly how it happened. Of course, Rocheteau must have spoken to Platoche [Platini]. He must have been behind it. But that’s how Éric came to England.’

  As we’ve seen, Platini had, indeed, been busying himself behind the scenes, as others had done: his assistant Gérard Houllier, who had taught in Liverpool after graduating from university and spoke fluent English as a result; Éric’s worried adviser Jean-Jacques Bertrand, Jean-Jacques Amorfini, the vice-chairman of the French PFA, and Dennis Roach, the agent who had overseen the first £1m transfer in England when Trevor Francis was sold by Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in 1979.18 A meeting was hastily arranged on 23 January, at the headquarters of Cacharel in Paris, to which the fas
hion house’s owner Jean Bousquet was also invited, as well as Sheffield Wednesday’s club secretary Graham Mackrell. For Didier Fèvre, the time had come to retreat into the background and, unaccountably, out of Éric Cantona’s life. Such a wonderful story deserved a happy ending, and Didier merited rather more than he got from the man whose life and career he had helped put back on the rails. There was no mistaking the sadness in his voice when he told me what follows.

  ‘We left Val d’Isère in our two rented cars,’ he recalled. ‘We stopped at the last service station before the exit for the airport. We hugged and kissed each other. I was going back to Paris, Stéphane to Caen. Several days later, I left for Wengen on a skiing assignment for L’Équipe. A message was waiting for me. “Call the paper – it’s urgent.” I was told that Éric was taking part in a trial at Sheffield Wednesday. I left Austria on the spot. I called Éric and found him quite cold – but thought, “There must be people around him, let’s not worry.” I arrived at the Sheffield hotel with Vincent Machenaud of France Football. Éric was at the bar, with Bertrand and Amorfini. We go past. He has a faraway look in his eyes. He shakes Vincent’s hand, who introduces himself. I joke and introduce myself, “Didier Fèvre” . . . and no reaction.

  ‘I never had the least explanation of his behaviour. He hasn’t talked to me since. I couldn’t tell you why. Éric operates by breaking up. We were a band of mates, Lolo [Laurent Blanc], Gérald Passi and Laurent Roussey . . . they didn’t understand either. It hurt me a great deal. People had been so jealous of my relationship with him. I ceased to exist in the eyes of those who saw me merely as the guy through whom they could get an interview with Éric. I came to Manchester on many occasions, and I made sure every time to position myself in a place where he couldn’t miss me. But it made no difference.

  ‘Recently, Éric went into an art gallery which is owned by my brother Bertrand in Arles; he knew him. And my sister had tried to get him a role in one of Alain Corneau’s films. Éric asked about me and said he’d like to see me again . . . But I don’t feel like answering the whistle. We’d shared so much together. Heaven knows, it’s difficult to be the friend of a famous footballer.’

  So much happened so quickly. Éric had always felt a desire to run away from everything that tied him to the life of a salaried footballer. He aspired to a state of constant exaltation which the game he excelled at could only provide in bursts, whereas, in his naïve expectations, the poet, the painter, the adventurer inhabited a higher realm where instinct and desire ruled, not the impostures of wealth and success. Being cast away could be a blessing. The men he despised most, the panjandrums of the French FA, had presented him with a gift when they intended to punish him. He’d show them. He’d retire. Others would surmise he’d committed suicide; he’d merely have shed a self that didn’t fulfil his aspirations. But he quickly realized that he lacked the powers to express himself in fields other than a football pitch. He also had a young family to feed. Yet such was the confusion in his mind and his life at the time that when I tried to unravel the affair by speaking to its main protagonists, and reading what Éric had told my France Football colleague Stéphane de Saint-Raymond in late January 1992, it was as if I had been brought into a conversation in which everyone talked over each other at the same time, a kind of Wellesian dialogue which went something like this:

  Gérard Houllier: ‘The idea of Éric going to England was Michel Platini’s, whose assistant I was at the time. Michel asked me if I could use my contacts to find him a club in England, as he was suspended in France . . . I thought English football could suit him, because of his physique and his strength in the air. But I had no idea that he would be such a success there – in fact, nobody could have imagined what happened afterwards.’

  Éric Cantona: ‘I had other proposals. Many other offers came my way, things which were more interesting, financially speaking. But I liked England. I liked life there, I liked rock music. And I felt like coming here, to learn the language, to allow my son to learn it. I felt like playing in packed stadia which “vibrate”. And I – I need that buzz. As much as I love acting as a profession, I’m unable to be an actor on the pitch.’

  Houllier: ‘I called one of my contacts, the agent Dennis Roach, whom I’d been in touch with when I wanted Glenn Hoddle to come to PSG . . .’

  Dennis Roach: ‘Gérard was a good friend. The problem was that there wasn’t a first division side in France which was able or willing to take on Éric, because he’d caused so many problems! It was a strange request . . . why wouldn’t he cause as many problems over here? But because it was Gérard, I thought about it.’

  Houllier: ‘. . . Hoddle went to Monaco instead; Dennis Roach then got in touch with Trevor Francis, whom he had represented.’

  Trevor Francis: ‘Yes, the trial was arranged by Dennis Roach, who was a friend of mine and organized something.’

  Roach: ‘Gérard and I had lunch with a couple of other guys from the FA. I’d already spoken to Trevor Francis, then manager of Sheffield Wednesday. Trevor told me he’d be interested in taking Éric.’

  Éric: ‘If I hadn’t been married, if I hadn’t had a child, I wouldn’t have come to Sheffield. I would’ve gone to a place where nobody would have been able to find me.’

  Roach: ‘We were lucky that Trevor was a good friend, who believed he could rely on my judgement. That was the only way at this stage we could get Éric to England. Nobody would have taken him on, because of his reputation. But Trevor did, because I told him: “I’ve known Gérard for a long time, and he says that this boy can be a great player.” This was the basis for his coming to England. I put that to Gérard, and we agreed to give it a go.’

  Francis: ‘I was given the opportunity to have a look at Éric Cantona, but, unfortunately, it was at a time when the weather was particularly bad in England. He was only with us for two days; and we couldn’t train on grass, because there was a lot of ice and snow on the ground; so he trained for two days on astroturf; we wished he had stayed for a little longer . . .’

  Roach: ‘Éric came over and played in an indoor six-a-side tournament19 – and he was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable.’

  Éric: ‘Sincerely, I loved these few days in Sheffield. What a welcome I had! There were 10,000 supporters at the indoor tournament! 10,000 people who, like me, expected me to play against Luton at the weekend.’

  Roach: ‘The contract was supposed to be signed on the 30th of January. Trevor was a very good footballer but, unfortunately, as a manager, he hadn’t yet learnt to make quick decisions . . . so he ummed and aahed . . .’

  Éric: ‘They wanted to put me on trial for two more days. I deserved respect. I was fifteen years old when I last did a trial. I am not “une big star”, but I have my pride.’

  Roach: ‘. . . and in the end, I got a phone call from Howard Wilkinson at Leeds.’

  Houllier: ‘I was in the West Indies, either in Guadeloupe or Martinique at the time, with a group of friends. I got in touch with my secretary in Paris, who said, “No, no particular message, except, ah, a Mr Howard Wilkinson would like you to call him urgently.” She gave me the number, and I phoned Wilkinson from a phone booth at the airport of Fort-de-France – this was quite a while before mobiles took off!’

  Francis: ‘I don’t have any real regrets. The conditions were so bad. You didn’t have to look too closely to understand he was a very talented footballer. I was aware that he had had some problems. But I don’t think it could ever have been possible for Éric Cantona to stay with us.’

  Éric: ‘Francis was always clear with me, he never doubted my worth – but he had to be understood: he needed a 100 per cent operational player, right now. And he knew I hadn’t played for a month-and-a-half . . . We trained indoors. He wasn’t able to make a judgement for himself.’

  Francis: ‘At the time, he was a very, very big-time player, and we never got to the point where we were in a position to actually start negotiating. And if we’d ever got to that point, I don’t thi
nk we’d have ever been in a position to bring Éric to Sheffield Wednesday, because he was too big at the time. We weren’t like some of the other established clubs in the league, who could pay big salaries. He left Sheffield Wednesday very, very quickly. We were expecting him to stay for another couple of days, and the next minute, it was arranged that he would go to Leeds!’

  Houllier: ‘Wilkinson told me: “There’s this player, he’s French, name of Cantona” – “Yes, I know him quite well,” I replied – “He’s at Sheffield at the moment, but there’s a problem, because they want to put him on trial, and he doesn’t want to . . . what do you think?” I remember telling him – my very words – “Close your eyes and take him, you’ll get a super-player. If you want to know more, I’m back in France tomorrow, and there’ll be an assemblée fédérale at the Méridien Hotel in Montparnasse – Michel Platini will be there, and we’ll talk about Éric again.” The next day, Michel and I went to a phone booth in Montparnasse and talked with Wilkinson a bit . . . He had a bit of French, he could get along . . .’

  Francis: ‘We were very surprised at Cantona leaving so quickly. If my memory serves me right, I think he was a little disappointed that we didn’t take a decision immediately when he was training with us. He wanted a quick decision. But if I understood what a talented player he was, I wanted to know more about Cantona the person. When you bring in someone who is such a big name, you’ve got to be 100 per cent sure he was not going to disrupt what was a very, very good team spirit.’