Maisie Adam: Pannal comedian on hosting BBC podcast Sport's Strangest Crimes: A French Football Scandal about Kheira Hamraoui and Aminata Diallo feud

Kheira Hamraoui and Aminata Diallo, two women players for French club PSG and former holiday buddies, became embroiled in a feud after the former was attacked in November 2021.

The case is the latest to be chronicled on the podcast series Sport’s Strangest Crimes, which this time is narrated by North Yorkshire comedian and Leeds United fan Maisie Adam, with the latest episode out today.

Adam, 30, who is based in Brighton, says: “I guess the most similar comparison is the Tonya Harding case, and that obviously blew up and was a huge sensation around the world. We've since had movies made about it,” says Adam, referencing I, Tonya.

Figure skater Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan was attacked in 1994, but recovered in time to make Olympic selection.

“I genuinely think this (the Hamraoui case) will be a Hollywood movie one day, too. So when Sport’s Strangest Crimes decided to cover it – I've listened to their previous series as well, and I've always thought they need to do the Hamraoui one – and when I got asked to be the narrator, I was very excited.

"Especially because unlike previous series, this one is still,, ongoing – we’re yet to find out what the verdict is going to be so it's exciting for me as the narrator, and it's exciting for the listener as they really do get to be judge and jury.”

The podcast begins in the summer of 2021, when French women's football star Hamraoui joined Paris Saint-Germain to compete for a place in midfield with Diallo (now of Saudi club Al Nassr). In November, as Hamraoui left Diallo's car after a team night out, she was attacked by masked men with iron bars and was unable to play for months.

Diallo, unharmed on the night, took Hamraoui's place in the PSG side and starred in a 4-0 victory over Real Madrid. However, the following morning she was arrested on suspicion of planning the attack.

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Days later Diallo was released, but for Hamraoui the saga escalated as fans and team mates turned against her. Over the next nine months the police secretly monitored Diallo's phone calls and conversations, and captured revelations that led to her re-arrest.

Tom Williams and Charlotte Harpur, from football publication The Athletic, reported for the podcast, gaining access to Diallo and people close to both stars.

Adam, who plays for Brighton Seagals FC, says: “As a massive women's football fan myself, it's an exciting story, because it's so bonkers, it's so mad, and it is sort of not in-keeping with everything else that we hear about this incredible sport, which is always being celebrated.

"The fastest growing sport on the planet, women's football, and it's often celebrated, quite rightly so, for being this very welcoming, very inclusive, very positive atmosphere game. That's why it's grown at the rate it has.

"This is showing a real ugly side. And I think it's important to show any sport or any industry, in fact, warts and all, as it were, and to show that this side of sport does exist. We do see it in the women's game.”

Some might feel it’s an example of two women being pitted against one another.

Adam says: “I see it as two sportspeople embroiled in a feud over what may or may not have been somebody doing whatever it takes to be at the top.

"I don't think people talk about, as I say, the Tonya Harding case as a woman against a woman. It's not a cat fight. These are sportspeople who are programmed from the moment they pursue this as their professional career to do pretty much anything to ensure that they go all the way to the top.

"And if that is what Diallo has done, that's a huge thing that should be covered, and it's not to be reduced as to something of two women going against each other.

"That is the reality of competitive sportspeople at times. We've seen it in drug scandals, we've seen it pretty much in every sport. And we as fans – we as true crime fans, we as football fans, we as the public –want to know about it.”

It’s a far cry from sleepy Pannal, the village in Harrogate where Adam grew up and of which has fond memories.

“We'd come off the school bus and be back in the park for five o'clock pretty much every night,” she says.

“There's so many memories there. It was such a nice place to grow up because there was just always somebody playing out. There was always someone from your school, two or three streets away.

"So I just remember it being a real close-knit little gang and that came from when you were like 11 years old, playing out on your bikes, right up until we were 18 and sharing taxis back from nightclubs all the way to Pannal. You'd be rounding up who else was on the dance floor and lived in Pannal to get a six-seater. It was great.”

She will be back in Yorkshire for the Kirkstall Abbey Comedy Festival on July 28 and her own tour, Appraisal, with dates in Harrogate, Leeds and Hull later in autumn.

“I'm buzzing for it,” she says. “I can't wait, I'm always so excited to come back to Yorkshire because, well, first of all, you know that in the audience there are definitely going to be some people that you know, which is always exciting. But also you feel like it's a homecoming gig, you've got to do them proud."

The third episode of Sport’s Strangest Crimes: A French Football Scandal is out today. The series is available as a boxset on BBC Sounds.