Email
Marseille's efforts to shed its reputation as a crime capital have been dealt a blow with a warning from the city's football team that a spate of violent robberies of star players is making it difficult to attract top talent to the club.
The homes of players for Olympic Marseille, the Ligue 1 team and former French champions, have become a regular target for armed robberies, known as "home-jackings".
This week the Brazilian defender Vitorino Hilton was at his gated Marseille home with 10 family members when an armed gang of six broke in just before midnight. They held the footballer's relatives hostage before hitting Hilton on the head with the butt of a gun several times and escaping with cash, jewellery, computers and designer bags.
Hilton told French radio station RMC: "As I'd been hit on the head, I was bleeding a lot, [my children] panicked." He said his children were scared and wanted to go back to Brazil.
The Argentinian Lucho González, one of the highest paid footballers in France, was said to have been left traumatised after an armed gang attacked him and his family at home in Aix-en-Provence in March.
After 10 attacks on players in 18 months Olympic Marseille announced it had set up private security patrols around players' homes in the city and surrounding area, and called on local authorities to crack down on crime.
Marseille will be European capital of culture in 2013 and is undergoing major architectural and cultural renovations. But Olympic Marseille's sporting director, José Anigo, said he was struggling to attract new star players because of the city's reputation.
"Every time I signed a player this year the first questions they asked were 'can you guarantee security?' and 'are my family at risk?'" he told a press conference. "Bringing players to Marseille in those conditions is complicated. You have to be a magician."
The club said it would be nonsensical to tell players not to wear designer watches and drive expensive cars. "Everyone has the right to profit from their earnings," said Anigo.
But the club admitted it may begin advising players to move to secure apartment blocks rather than isolated houses.
