Former Manchester United star Patrice Evra has been given a suspended sentence for “abandoning his family”

Evra was also ordered to pay his ex-wife €4,000 (£3,360) in non-pecuniary damages and €2,000 (£1,700) in legal fees.

Nathalie Dubois, Ms Evra’s lawyer, said: “I hope that thanks to this decision, Patrice Evra will finally understand that he is not above the law and that we cannot abandon our wife and children overnight. All the more so as they met when they were 15 years old and she followed him all over the world to support his football career.”

Jérôme Boursican, who represents Mr Evra, stressed to Le Parisien that his client “disputes the facts”. Mr Boursican said: “Mr Patrice Evra appealed despite knowing that he had provided his wife with an apartment and a house with a swimming pool in the south of France and had lent her nearly two million euros for her living expenses. A sum that she refuses to repay and that is the reason for this trial.”

The Evras married in 2007, but divorce proceedings began around 2020 when the former Manchester United, Juventus and Marseille defender was photographed kissing Danish model Margaux Alexandra.

Since then, Mr Evra and Margaux Alexandra have had two children of their own and presumably live in Dubai.

Evra was born in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and then moved to Paris as a young child. In 2020, Sandra Evra spoke publicly about the affair, which eventually led to divorce after 25 years together.

She said her “lifelong love story turned into a nightmare” and the man she once adored had turned into a “tyrannical rat”. She said: “We had a wonderful family Christmas, a fantastic holiday together in the Maldives and at New Year’s we kissed and cuddled together after a night out as a family with our son and daughter.”

“Two days later he left our house in Paris to go to work in London and said he would be back in two weeks. And since then I have never spoken to him again. He tried to banish me from my life.

“I saw photos of him with another woman in London and then I got a call from my lawyer telling me he wanted to divorce me. It was the worst day of my life. I was shocked, devastated, desperate.”

The couple were just 15 years old when they met at school in Les Ulis – the Paris suburb that has produced numerous Premier League stars – and Sandra describes the moment as “love at first sight”.

Sandra Evra decided to speak out after Mr Evra gave an interview in August 2020 in which he stated that they only met for “family moments” and were no longer “under the same roof”.

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