Misbehaving Les Bleus players docked Euro bonuses

Four France players slapped with either suspensions or a warning for their behaviour during Euro 2012 will not receive any bonuses, the country’s football federation said.

The French Football Federation (FFF) said that Samir Nasri, Jeremy Menez, Hatem Ben Arfa and Yann M’Vila would not be paid bonuses for getting through to the quarter-finals at the tournament in Poland and Ukraine in June.

Nasri was last week hit with a four-match ban for shouting angrily towards television cameras during the side’s first group stage match and for hurling foul-mouthed abuse at a journalist after the quarter-final defeat to Spain.

Menez received a one-match suspension for a spat with captain Hugo Lloris in the game against Spain and for insulting the referee after the same match.

Ben Arfa and M’Vila were both warned about their future conduct.

Meanwhile, the FFF said that other members of the Euro 2012 squad would receive a 25 per cent cut in their bonuses, following fierce debate in France that none of the players deserved to be paid extra for their winning performances.

Sixty per cent of the unpaid sums will be redistributed to amateur football with the remainder going towards football charities, the federation said in a statement.

The federation’s executive committee said that it had also set up a commission under the president of Ligue 1 side Jacques Rousselot to study “a new system of bonus payments for the future”.

The non-payment and reduction of bonuses comes after French sports minister Valerie Fourneyron suggested that Les Bleus should follow the example of beaten finalists Italy, who donated their payments to earthquake victims.

UEFA president Michel Platini, himself a former France captain and European Championship winner, also backed the plan.