Mathias Pogba
Mathias Pogba will serve the first year of his sentence under house arrest with electronic monitoring
Paul Pogba’s brother has been sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted in a £10 million extortion case that targeted the former Manchester United midfielder.
But Mathias Pogba will not be jailed after the final two years of his sentence were suspended and it was ruled he could serve the first while wearing an electronic tag.
He was also fined €20,000 (£16,500) over the plot which involved his brother’s childhood friends, and prison sentences ranging from four to eight years were imposed on five other men on Thursday.
All six defendants went on trial last month at the Paris criminal court, with Mathias Pogba charged with “attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy”.
The five others allegedly demanded €13 million (£10,700) from Paul Pogba, and repeatedly intimidated him, claiming he should have supported them after he became a global football star.
They were accused of extortion and attempted extortion by using violence, abduction and confinement to facilitate a crime or misdemeanour, as well as criminal conspiracy.
Mathias Pogba
Mathias pictured with his brother Paul Pogba in 2019 Credit: Getty Images/Guillaume Souvant
Paul Pogba, who decided not to attend the trial, said he paid €100,000 (£82,700) to the organised group including his brother.
The 31-year-old player also told investigators the alleged extortionists wanted to discredit him by claiming he asked a witch doctor to cast a spell on France team-mate Kylian Mbappé.
The case became public after Mathias Pogba posted threats on social media to share “explosive” revelations about his brother, Mbappé and Paul Pogba’s agent Rafaela Pimenta. Mathias Pogba was also a soccer player who spent most of his career with lower-tier teams in Europe.
Pogba agrees to Juventus contract termination
Earlier this month, Juventus said it came to “a mutual agreement” with Pogba to cancel his contract despite the France World Cup winner having a ban for doping slashed last month. The Serie A club never seemed overly enthusiastic about welcoming Pogba back after his four-year ban was reduced to 18 months following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Pogba, who will be free to resume his career in March, had said he was ready to give up money to play for Juventus again.
Pogba tested positive for testosterone in August last year and was handed the maximum punishment by Italy’s anti-doping court.
But CAS judges cut Pogba’s ban as they acknowledged a lack of intent and said his positive test was the result of erroneously taking a supplement prescribed to him by a medical doctor in Florida. Pogba’s contract with Juventus was set to expire in June 2026.
In 2016, Pogba became the then-most expensive football player in history when he joined United from Juve for a fee of €105 million (£89.3 million).
He starred in France’s World Cup triumph in 2018 and returned to Juve as a free agent in 2022. Injuries limited him to just eight Serie A appearances in his second spell at the club before his ban last year.
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