Pascal Olmeta (born 7 April 1961 in Bastia) is a French former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Olympique de Marseille and Olympique Lyonnais in the 1990s.

Olmeta is good friends with Eric Cantona and has played in two testimonials for the Rest of the World against Manchester United: he played in the Munich testimonial in 1998 and also Sir Alex Ferguson's testimonial in 1999. In 2010, Olmeta played in goal for United in a charity game in aid of Sport Relief.

He represented France in the Beach Soccer World Cup 2001 and was awarded the *le of 'Best Goalkeeper' in the tournament.

Personal life

Olmeta is married with two daughters.

In 2016, Olmeta drew criticism after video footage from 2011 surfaced showing him shooting an elephant in the head before posing "proudly" with the corpse. He defended the footage stating he had shot the animal because of overpopulation in Zimbabwe, and all income from hunting was being used to help local people.

References

External links

• Pascal Olmeta – French league stats at LFP (archived 2017-11-14) – also available in French (archived 2019-06-06)
• Pascal Olmeta – French league stats at Ligue 1 – also available in French