Former Arsenal and Ivory Coast defender Emmanuel Eboué has spoken publicly about the deep personal pain of being separated from his three children, years after a high-profile divorce stripped him of his finances and family home.
Speaking on The 5th House Podcast, the 42-year-old revealed he has had no meaningful contact with his children for years and does not even have recent photographs of them. “Up till now, I don’t have any recent pictures. The pictures that I have are the old ones, when they were kids. Even when I ask their mum for new pictures, she refuses to give them to me,” he said.
Eboué married his Belgian wife Aurélie Bertrand before joining Arsenal in 2004. The couple had three children together. Their divorce, which concluded around 2017, saw the court award Bertrand full custody of the children as well as the majority of Eboué’s assets, including two homes in England.
The former right-back described relying on third parties just to keep up with his children’s lives, with people around him monitoring social media and forwarding photographs when they appear. His attempts to contact them directly have largely gone unanswered. “I have their numbers. Every time I’m messaging them, I don’t know if it’s them reading, but I can see that they read my messages. But they don’t answer,” he said.
The estrangement hit him with particular force when his son Mathis signed for Chelsea earlier this year. Eboué was not informed of the signing and learned about it after the fact. “I feel very sad because when he signed for Chelsea I wasn’t there. The mom didn’t call me,” he said, while still expressing pride in his son’s achievement.
Despite the painful distance, Eboué said he has chosen to remain in Ivory Coast rather than travel to England, holding onto hope that the relationship with his children will eventually be restored.
Eboué made over 214 appearances for Arsenal between 2004 and 2011 and also represented Galatasaray and Sunderland during a career that reportedly earned him over £20 million. By December 2017, he had publicly described himself as poor and homeless following the divorce and a series of bad investments.
