US international striker Charlie Davies says he wasn’t driving the car pulled over for speeding at 125 mph last weekend in eastern France, and that he lied to authorities in order to protect a teammate.
According to the Associated Press, Davies says that Sochaux teammate Jacques Faty was driving the car and that he asked Davies to switch places and lie to police because he would be jailed for driving with a suspended license.
Davies, who was seriously injured in a fatal car accident nearly a year ago in Virginia that killed a female passenger, told the AP he was lying down in the passenger seat when the car was pulled over for speeding. That’s when Faty asked for him to switch places, in part because “Charlie is an American, in France. I thought it would be easier,” according to the AP.
"That's not possible for me to go 120 mph on the road after an accident and think everything will be fine," Davies told the AP. "If a kid survives such a serious accident and then almost exactly a year later is driving at a reckless speed, it's like, 'This can't be serious.' ... If someone has a second chance like I do, to take advantage of something like that, it's not something I could do. I learned too much from the whole experience to let something like that happen."
Faty told the AP he plans to go to the police this week and clear up the incident.
Davies suffered two broken bones in his right leg, a broken and dislocated left elbow, a broken nose, forehead and eye socket, a ruptured bladder and bleeding on the brain in the fatal car accident last year. The injuries suffered in the crash cost him a spot on the US roster at this summer’s World Cup in South Africa, and he has yet to appear in a match for Sochaux since the accident.
Davies told the AP that he had decided to fly to Boston during a four-day vacation from Sochaux, and that he asked Faty for a ride to Paris.
"Everything seemed fine. I knew he was driving a little fast but didn't know he was driving as fast as he was," Davies told the AP. "Then I saw a blue flash from a police car."
Davies said he was hesitant at first when Faty asked him to switch in the car, which had tinted windows.
"I was like, 'Jacques, I don't think I can do this.' He was like, 'No, trust me, it'll be easy. If you don't, I'll go to prison and you'll be stranded here,' " Davies said.
Police later told Faty at the police station that his license was no longer suspended.
"I'm sorry for Charlie, I'm sorry for his family," Faty told the AP. "I never expected a problem like this. ... I made a mistake, and I will fix everything now."
