World Cup kicks off with empty seat for French journalist detained in Algeria

FIFA has issued World Cup accreditation to French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has confirmed, praising a “strong show of support” from world football's governing body ahead of the World Cup which kicks off on Thursday.

The freelance reporter was handed a seven-year prison sentence in Algeria last year over an interview with a football official accused of ties to a banned separatist movement.

The FIFA accreditation authorises Gleizes to cover the entire World Cup, held in the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, for the French magazine So Foot.

The move “is a reminder that the rightful place of this sports journalist and football specialist is not in prison, but in the stadiums and behind the scenes of this major global competition”, RSF head Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement.

Based in Paris, RSF is a prominent media freedom advocacy group and coordinates a support committee for Gleizes.

Gleize's parents, Sylvie and Francis Godard, expressed their “gratitude” to FIFA in a statement. They also reiterated their appeal for “clemency” from Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, adding: “This never-ending situation has left us devastated”.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino kept an empty seat for the jailed reporter during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, in a further gesture of support.

Infantino said he hoped that Gleizes, “the only sports journalist currently imprisoned in the world”, would be pardoned by the Algerian president and “even be able to join us during the World Cup”.

Hopes for Independence Day pardon

The 37-year-old reporter was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria's Kabylie region to write about the country's most decorated football club, JSK.

He was sentenced in June last year to seven years in jail for “glorifying terrorism” after he was earlier convicted of having contact with members of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group that Algiers has designated a terrorist organisation. French football journalist Christophe Gleizes has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

The Godards visited Gleizes in detention last week, telling AFP he was “being treated well but feels increasingly isolated from the outside world”.

His prison sentence, handed down at the height of a diplomatic crisis between France and Algeria, was upheld on appeal in December.

In March, Gleizes withdrew an appeal to the Supreme Court, in the hope of paving the way for a presidential pardon.

The path was further cleared on June 3 when the journalist's lawyers announced that Algeria's highest court of appeal had rejected an appeal from prosecutors for a tougher sentence, removing the last obstacle to a possible pardon.

Algeria traditionally issues pardons during major religious and national holidays, including on July 5, the day marking the independence of the North African country from French colonial rule in 1962.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)