But it is also worth knowing the background here and one of the reasons, perhaps, why she is so protective of her son and takes such a prominent role in his career, representing him in all his contract negotiations and regularly speaking on his behalf in the media. She, indeed, negotiated his first professional contract when he was a teenager, sitting face-to-face with PSG sporting director Leonardo.
In 2007, when Rabiot was a 12-year-old in the youth system at US Creteil, his father, Michel, suffered a stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome, a condition that meant he was completely paralysed. Michel, a PSG supporter who used to run his son to youth-team matches, was left in a wheelchair and could communicate only by moving his eyelids. He died in January 2019.
“What you have to understand here is her background,” says one person with close knowledge of the family. “She singlehandedly raised three boys with a handicapped husband, and I mean seriously handicapped. Her husband was in hospital most of Adrien’s life. He was very poorly. He had his brain but could not talk. He was in a cocoon. This woman suffered a lot.
“She stands her ground. She goes overboard but she raised her boys and took her son everywhere for football, no matter if it was minus five degrees and snow. And she is an honest woman. She gives money to church. She was (from a) very poor upbringing. She is really hard-nosed. She is not a prima donna. She gives back to people who helped her before. Is she too loud? Yes. But she has a lot of baggage. The context is everything. She is not a bad person. And she will always defend her son to death.”