Death of Didier Roustan: childhood in Nice, parents on the move… A very secret and protected private life

A figure of sports journalism and defender of golden football, Didier Roustan was a star of the small screen who knew how to keep his private life away from the cameras.

In almost 50 years of career, Didier Roustan has followed football all the way. Joining TF1 in 1976, the same year that a certain Diego Maradona began his professional career, he became one of the spearheads of the show Téléfoot. Passionate about football and especially the beautiful game, he continued his career on Canal+ then at Antenne 2 where he follows the first World Cup victory of the Brazilian Ronaldo. After a short stint in the dark, he joined the L'Equipe channel and then made several appearances on TV5 Monde and Europe 1 Sport. In 2008, he joined the band of L'Équipe du soir, which he would not leave until June 2024. 

A football lover but not only, Didier Roustan also loves players. In 1994, he became friends with Eric Cantona while they were commentating the World Cup together. His career allowed him to meet his lifelong idols, Platini, Pelé, Cruyff, and especially Maradona, with him and Eric Cantona they founded the International Association of Professional Players in 1995. The first global players' union aims to protect them from the excesses of a system where Money is becoming more and more important.

He has also managed to protect his private life. Having remained very discreet about his love life and family life, the journalist has preferred, throughout his career, to separate the professional from the personal. And above all, to protect the people who are part of his private and family circle.

A disjointed family life

He had barely confided to a few very curious journalists some confidences about his childhood, far from his parents, always on the move. After spending the first three years of his life in Brazzaville, where he was born, he left Congo for Cannes. He was then raised by his grandparents.  "I have flashbacks. I remember the atmosphere. When I return to Africa, I feel at home.", he told Libération, in 2006, " the opportunity for a portrait. To the journalist responsible for talking about his daily life and his way of seeing the world, he also launched to have a bulldog called Emma Peel in homage to the heroine of the seriesThe Avengers.

The sports journalist also admitted during a conversation, again with Libération, that he had led a life that was too disjointed to assume the stability of a family life.”I was lucky to have people around me who supported my crazy moments. Çhas done damage. When you see your 3-year-old son, when you're leaving for Argentina, who tells you: "Stay there." It's very hard," he said, without saying more.

Claude Martinelli, a childhood friend, is one of those who shared his intimacy:  "When he could go down to Cannes for at least a week, we always made arrangements to meet. We would go to eat at each other's houses, our children know each other, we shared many moments together.", he recalls for Nice Matin.

His death, which occurred during the night of September 10 to 11, caused a national outcry, but also in the city where he has grown up. Cannes Mayor David Lisnard paid tribute to him. "I learned with emotion of Didier Roustan's death. A passionate Cannes resident, attached to the red and whites, he loved football, above all the beautiful game and the beautiful stories", he wrote on X adding: "He had invented a new television language around the round ball, filled with positive spirit and poetry”.

Since the announcement of his death this Wednesday, September 11, the world of sports journalism has paid tribute to him. L'Equipe salutes a “bible of sport”, the “president for life” of the show L'Équipe du soir. Pascal Praud who worked with him at TF1, Anissa Haddadi with whom he worked at Europe 1, as well as Vincent Duluc from L'Équipe and Michel Denisot his former colleague from Canal+ have expressed their sorrow at this tragic loss. Didier Roustan died from liver cancer, he was 66 years old.