Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra has been given a suspended prison sentence after allegedly failing to pay his ex-wife almost £1million in alimony
Former Manchester United and France football star Patrice Evra had been handed a suspended prison sentence for failing to pay close to £1million in alimony to his ex-wife.
Judges in the Paris suburb of Nanterre ruled that Evra, 43, had effectively ‘abandoned’ Sandra Evra, 42, and their children – a boy who is now 19 and a girl, aged 10 – between May 1, 2021 and September 28, 2023.
Lawyers for the footballer immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict, which followed years of litigation. Evra, a multimillionaire following a hugely successful playing career, was alleged to owe his ex-wife a total of €969,000 (£814,000) in unpaid alimony.
“The sentence was 12 months in prison, suspended for two years,” a prosecuting source at the Hauts-de-Seine Correctional Court said on Friday. “Mr Evra’s legal team immediately appealed.”
Evra was also ordered to pay his ex-wife €4,000 (£3,360) for moral damages and €2,000 (£1,700) in legal costs.
Nathalie Dubois, Ms Evra’s barrister, said: “I hope that, thanks to this decision, Patrice Evra will finally understand that he is not above the law and that we cannot abandon our wife and children overnight. Even more so when they met at the age of 15 and she followed him all over the world to support his football career.”
Jérôme Boursican, for Mr Evra, insisted to Le Parisien that ‘the facts are disputed’ by his client. Mr Boursican said: “Mr. Patrice Evra appealed, 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, and this is the reason for this trial.”
The Evras married in 2007, but divorce proceedings were instigated around 2020, when the former Manchester United, Juventus, and Marseille defender was pictured kissing Danish model Margaux Alexandra.
Since then, Mr Evra and Margaux Alexandra have had two children of their own together, and are believed to be living in Dubai.
Evra was born in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and then moved to Paris as a young child. In 2020, Sandra Evra spoke publicly about the affair that finally led to divorce after 25 years together.
She said their ‘life long love story turned into a nightmare’ and the man she once adored has turned into a ‘bullying rat’. She said: “We had a wonderful family Christmas, an amazing holiday in the Maldives together and at New Year we kissed and cuddled together after spending a night as a family with our son and daughter.
“Two days later he left our home in Paris to go to work in London saying he would be back two weeks later. And I have never spoken to him since. He has tried to cut me out of my life.
“I saw photographs of him with another woman in London and then I got a call from my solicitor telling me that he wanted to divorce me. It was the worst day of my life. I was in shock, devastated, distraught.”
The couple were just 15-years-old when they met at school in Les Ulis – the Paris suburb that has produced numerous Premiership stars – and Sandra describes the moment as ‘love at first sight’.
Sandra Evra decided to speak out after Mr Evra gave an interview in August 2020, saying that they only met at ‘family moments’ and were no longer ‘sharing the same roof’.
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