A guilty verdict from a match-fixing case over a decade ago appears to be the reason why Nikola Karabatic was not considered to be the male flag bearer for France at Friday’s Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony.
In September 2012, suspicions were raised when Montpelier lost a French league match to Cesson-Rennes and a group of players were implicated in match-fixing fraud with bets totalling 103,000 euro on the match.
“It was a crazy episode that lasted for five years before they finally accepted the sentence,” said L’Equipe journalist Yann Hildwein in an interview reviewing Karabatic’s stellar playing career on the (Un)informed Handball Hour podcast.
“I talked to him about it when he announced the end of his career and he says it is part of his history, the story of his life and he will make do with it.”
In January, Karabatic told Le Parisien that it would be a huge honour to have the role. Karabatic’s legendary status, three gold medals and his final outing for the team would all point in the direction of him getting the nod, but it was swimmer Florent Manaudou who was chosen as the male representative.
“It will remain one of the dark parts of his life and this is the reason why he is not the flag-bearer for France at the opening ceremony. I think he was the favourite and he was by far the leader in a poll for our readers but there is a criteria that you must not have been sentenced for sporting reasons, so it came back to him over 10 years later,” says Hildwein.
While this opportunity has slipped away from the French handball hero, the sport will be well-represented in the ceremony on the river Seine with five handball players given the honour to lead their delegation:
Niklas Landin (Denmark)
Lois Abbingh (Netherlands)
Blanka Böde-Bíró (Hungary)
Azenaide Carlos (Angola)
Ana Gros (Slovenia)
Beyond the talk of his guilty verdict, the podcast focuses on a remarkable playing career of a born-winner, spanning over two decades. Stories of Karabatic’s breakthrough as an 18-year-old in the Champions League final, playing through the pain at the 2017 World Championship and reinventing himself in his later years for club and country. Listen to the full episode below.