Some stories from football arrive without warning.
A player’s name.
A police station.
A charge that nobody saw coming.
Samir Nasri has already been battling French tax authorities for months.
A dispute involving €5.5 million in alleged unpaid income tax, Deliveroo orders and frozen bank accounts.
One which became one of the strangest stories of 2026.
Now there’s a new charge.
And this one is considerably more serious.
Samir Nasri held in police custody over organised money laundering allegations
According to Le Parisien, Nasri was placed in police custody on suspicion of organised money laundering, with his name linked to a nightclub called XS in Ivry-sur-Seine, a venue in which the former Arsenal and Manchester City midfielder served as a former manager.
French publication Foot Mercato confirmed the details.
Noting that Nasri was subsequently released without charge at this stage of the investigation.
But the fact that he was taken into custody at all represents a significant escalation of the legal difficulties surrounding the 38-year-old.
The XS nightclub in Ivry-sur-Seine is at the centre of the investigation.
It comes just months after a separate and unrelated legal battle entered the public domain.
French authorities had been investigating Nasri’s tax residency claims.
With prosecutors contending that despite officially registering himself as a resident of Dubai, Nasri had spent a significant portion of his time in France.
Evidence cited included 212 Deliveroo orders placed to a Paris address in 2022.
Flight records showing 487 days spent in France between 2021 and 2023, compared with just 226 in the UAE.
Ownership stakes in French companies and three properties in Paris.
Nasri has consistently disputed those claims.
His lawyer describing the alleged €5.5 million tax debt as “imaginary” and insisting his client “is a perfect French citizen.”
The years since retirement have been considerably less straightforward.
He has been released without charge for now.
But the investigation continues.
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