Hey, here’s Hatem Ben Arfa again. Absent from professional football fields since April 2, 2022 and a Bordeaux-Lille (2-2) in Ligue 1, the former Newcastle, OM and PSG player shines in another discipline: padel. Fashionable and very popular with football retirees, including ex-international Christophe Jallet, racket sport has made “HBA” addicted, reports Le Parisien this Tuesday. Ranked today 1342nd out of 42,300 French players referenced and licensed at the 4Padel Montreuil club, the native of Clamart (36 years old) would have participated in 70 tournaments in one, or more than one per week! A true passion, which leads to retraining.
“Hatem doesn’t do anything more than that. He plays almost every day. He laughs a little. He puts a good atmosphere on the pitch, Roland Mermillod, a padel referee, told Parisian. It’s nice to have him as a player. He’s not a dickhead at all. He comes for pleasure. People are happy to play against him. He has progressed a lot. At first, he didn’t know how to play volleyball. We feel that he does not have the experience of a tennis player more comfortable with racket in hand, but that of a professional athlete. He is very good at reading the game, the ability to repeat efforts, to change direction quickly. Like when he dribbled.”
Still on the free player market, will Hatem Ben Arfa ever find a football locker room? He’s not sure. In any case, he maintains his physical form by playing games of padel with anonymous people or sometimes with Cyril Hanouna, the son of Luis Fernandez or even the brother of tennis player Gaël Monfils.