FAKE NEWS: Pogba denies quitting French national team

MANCHESTER United midfielder Paul Pogba has responded to reports that he planned to stop playing for France, insisting that he has no such plans.

Reports that originated in the Middle East about Pogba’s purported international retirement spread throughout the world on Monday, generating heated reactions.

The reports claimed that the 27-year-old, who converted to Islam in his 20s, vowed to quit the national team because of French President Emmanuel Macron’s stance on terrorism.

Macron has descended heavily on those he refers to as ‘Islamist terrorists’ after a schoolteacher was recently gruesomely beheaded by a parent for sharing cartoons mocking the Muslim prophet Muhammad with his pupils.

While many in the Muslim world have condemned Macron’s words as stoking Islamaphobia, Pogba indignantly dismissed the reports of his involvement in the controversy.

“Absolutely 100 percent unfounded news about me are flying around, stating things I’ve never said or thought. I am appalled, angry, shocked and frustrated some ‘media’ sources use me to make total fake headlines in the sensible subject of French current events and adding the French National Team to the pot,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Monday afternoon.

“I’m against any and all forms of terror and violence…I’m taking legal action against the publishers and spreaders of this 100% FAKE NEWS.” 

He also took a screenshot of one of the reports (in a major British tabloid), stamped it with ‘UNACCEPTABLE FAKE NEWS’ and posted it on his Twitter account.

Pogba has played 71 times for France, scoring 10 goals, including one in the final of the 2018 World Cup as they claimed their second title.