Patrice Evra avoids ban after verbal tirade

Manchester United and France left-back Patrice Evra will not be banned by the French Football Federation (FFF) in the wake of a vicious verbal assault on several pundits in a television interview.

In a statement on Thursday, the FFF confirmed that Evra would remain available for selection for the national team, leaving him open for a place in Didier Deschamps' squad for next month's two-legged World Cup qualifying play-off against Ukraine.

"After hearing his explanations, and seeing the remorse shown by the player, and ahead of two decisive matches for the future of French football, president Noel Le Graet has decided that Patrice Evra remains available for selection," the statement read.

Evra attacked four high-profile pundits, including France's World Cup-winning left-back Bixente Lizarazu, former Marseille coach Rolland Courbis and ex-Paris Saint-Germain player and coach Luis Fernandez in an interview given to TV station TF1 in the wake of last Tuesday's 3-0 World Cup qualifying win over Finland and aired on Sunday.

Evra branded his critics as "tramps" and "parasites", but he denied accusations that he had sought "to damage the image of the national team or of French football" when he faced FFF president Le Graet and Deschamps in Paris on Thursday, the day after playing in United's 1-0 Champions League win against Real Sociedad.

According to the FFF, Evra accepted that the timing of his comments was poor and that he badly chose some of his words, but "the persecution he claimed to have been a victim of was a reality that had made both him and his family suffer."

Evra was the captain of France during their disastrous 2010 World Cup campaign in South Africa, when he infamously led a squad mutiny, instructing his colleagues not to get off the bus and train in protest at Nicolas Anelka being sent home for an outburst of his own.