'These children endured a nightmare' - The abuses of Griezmann's former mentor revealed

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FT Desk

New revelations have emerged about Eric Olhats, a former football scout who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2025 for sexual assault on minors.

Olhats worked for Real Sociedad between 2003 and 2018 and Atletico Madrid between 2018 and 2022 and is credited with being the man who discovered the talents of Antoine Griezmann among others.

He has had sexual assault allegations follow him throughout most of his career.

In 1990 he was accused of sexually assaulting two nine-year-old bous at a summer camp and would later confess, though nothing was put on his criminal record.

He was accused again in 2007 and 2009. In 2007, he was acquitted after a victim could not remember whether he was the specific abuser, while in 2009 he received a three-month suspended sentence and was banned from working with children for 10 years, though he later won an appeal.

Finally, in 2025 Olhats was found guilty of sexually abusing minors and grooming for offences that took place between 1997 and 2022 and 2021 to 2022.

He was banned from working with children for life.

Thomas Rabino and Fabien Touati, the authors of 'Dans la gueule du Loup', roughly translated as 'Into the Wolf's Jaws', spoke about their investigation into Olhat's crimes for the revelations in the book.

"He fooled everyone," explains Rabino. "And it's part of how it works. Like all predators, there is a manipulative side that allows him to put everyone in his pocket, starting with children, families..."

"Dozens of children have passed under the radar of justice, especially on the housing conditions of children and adolescents who were housed with Eric Olhats," adds. Touati.

"It was a T3 in Bayonne with the blinds always closed, it was the bachelor's den, in which he beat the children, he raped them psychologically. We reveal this because justice has completely missed these facts.

"More seriously, we discovered in Eric Olhats' 443 tablets of Temesta, a powerful anxiolytic but it is also the rapist's drug, the drug of Dominique Pelicot.

"The same quantities were found in Eric Olhat's as in Dominique Pelicot. And that was not discussed at all during the trial."

Dominique Pelicot is a Frenchman who became known internationally after being convicted in the Gisele Pelicot rape case.

Between around 2011 and 2020, Pelicot secretly drugged his then-wife, Gisele, and sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. He also contacted other men online and invited them to their home to assault her while she was unconscious. He recorded many of the assaults, which later became crucial evidence in the investigation.

In 2024, Pelicot stood trial in Avignon alongside 50 other men who had been accused of involvement. He was found guilty of aggravated rape and received a 20-year prison sentence.

Rabino is dumbfounded that Olhats was actively engaging in such criminal acts for so long.

"How could such elements go under the radar of justice?" asks Rabino.

"There is a dysfunction of justice. We were in 1991, it was not the same time but we were talking about an attack on modesty but it was a matter of corruption of minors, potentially sexual assault. And he has no mention at the locker and it will allow him to adopt a clean posture, despite the fact that he had his reputation. In the Basque Country, he had this nickname, 'the paedophile', it's still quite amazing."

Another question that has been raised is why Real Sociedad did not investigate allegations made against the scout over an extended period of time.

"Why has Real Sociedad never been heard on this?" Touati asks.

"According to testimonies, he was paid in cash 600 euros per month, per child he hosted. Real Sociedad served teenagers on a platter to a sexual predator. We contacted them, they don't answer. Even worse, he had full access to Real Sociedad's infrastructure. In addition to the young people he hosted, he took children to train whom he had a career, to make them dream. That's how he put his grip."

The two authors were guests on After Foot on Thursday and they also detailed one occasion when boys were staying at Olhats' home and he arrived after being beaten badly by the father of another boy whom he attempted to meet.

Real Sociedad chiefs then quickly got Griezmann and other players out of his house. The World Cup winner, for his part, says he did not witness any criminal acts while under Olhats' care.

At a hearing in Enghien-les-Bains in 2022, Griezmann said" "I lived with Eric from 2004 to 2009 and nothing strange ever happened between Eric and me, or even between Eric and the other children."