Nicolas Pepe’s tetchy relationship with the Ivory Coast football federation was shown up again in rather amusing scenes.
The Villarreal winger has an odd relationship with his country who dropped him from their 2025/26 AFCON squad.
Back in situ for the World Cup, his side have had a decent start in a tough group, beating Ecuador before a narrow 2-1 loss to Germany.
Pepe started the first match, but only played five minutes at the end of the Germany defeat, and clearly wasn’t in the mood to be lectured after.
Pepe appears to snub federation president
Some amusing footage from the Ivorian federation has shown president Yacine Idriss Diallo talking to the squad while Pepe clearly sits behind uninterested on his phone.
Diallo can be heard telling the players: “Come on, the most important thing is the lessons you take from this.
“Every game of this nature makes you grow, makes you progress, makes you evolve.
“You are young, you have the ability, you have the quality.”
Nicolas Pepe and the Ivory Coast
Pepe’s damaged relationship with the federation goes back to concerns over his private life and some ill-advised interviews.
The former Arsenal winger is in a long term relationship with an adult film actress, and before AFCON he made some disparaging comments about hosts Morocco.
“We have three stars and you (Algeria) only have two,” he said on a podcast, referring to tournament wins.
“But watch out for the Moroccans, they’re here. How many stars do they have? One? They must have won that in 1818, we weren’t even born yet, not even my dad was born.”
Responding to his non-call-up, Pepe wrote on Instagram: “Double Trouble for me. This is football, this is life.”
Head coach Emerse Faé later gave more details on his snub.
“Sanction, that’s a bit strong,” Faé said at a press conference.
“He did make an appearance in recent days… What I can tell you is that it’s not a sporting sanction. If we were only looking at the sporting aspect, he would obviously have been on the list.
“To make a list, you have to take into account many factors, both on and off the pitch.
“All these factors combined have led to Nico not being on the list, but it’s absolutely not a sporting sanction.”
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