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The heartbreaking story behind Franck Ribery's facial scars

Home> Football

Published 15:25 21 Oct 2022 GMT+1

The heartbreaking story behind Franck Ribery's facial scars

Ribery has had the scars since a car crash when he was a child and the Frenchman wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

Jack Kenmare

Jack Kenmare

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: Franck Ribery

Jack Kenmare
Jack Kenmare

Jack is a Senior Journalist who enjoys a long read. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Football Manager wonderkids from 2005 to the present day, and has interviewed a handful of FM's finest, including Freddy Adu, Supat Rungratsamee and Mika Aaritalo.

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@jackkenmare_

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Franck Ribery opened up about the facial scars that gave him 'character' and 'strength' throughout his career in football.

In years gone by, the 39-year-old has spoken publicly about the trauma on a number of occasions, and in an emotional interview with Canal+ Sport the former winger revealed how he dealt with the pain from childhood.

If you haven't heard the story before, Ribery suffered a serious head wound in a car accident at the age of two.

He was rushed to hospital and required 100 stitches after the crash in his hometown of Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

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According to Yahoo, he wasn't wearing a seat belt, which sent him crashing through the vehicle's windshield.

Ribery as a child. (Image: FranckRibery/Instagram)
Ribery as a child. (Image: FranckRibery/Instagram)

Throughout his childhood, people would stare and point at Ribery in the street, saying how 'ugly' the scars were.

But as we mentioned earlier, the former France international took a positive outlook on his situation.

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"People would say: 'Look what he has on his face, look at his head. What is this scar? It's so ugly.' Wherever I went, people would look at me," the ex-Bayern Munich man told Canal+ Sport.

"And not because I was a good person or because my name is Franck or was a good footballer, but because of the scar.

"They gave me character and this strength. Because, when you are a child and you have a scar like this, it's not easy. The way people see you, the comments - my family suffered for this.

"The people who talk about you are the parents (of other children), and this is very cruel. I never went to a corner and cried, despite suffering."

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Ribery was last contracted to Serie A outfit Salernitana. (Image
Alamy)

Ribery, who announced his retirement on Friday, also claimed in Simon Kuper's book The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game, that the incident motivated him at a young age:

"The problem was that I was sitting in the back and I went flying forward on impact.

"In a certain way this accident helped me. As a child, it motivated me." he said.

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"God gave me this difference. The scars are part of me, and people will just have to take me the way I am."

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