USA star Joel Embiid breaks silence on Olympics boos and tells French fans to ‘suck it’ ahead of gold medal showdown

JOEL Embiid has taunted French fans who plan to boo him during Saturday’s men’s basketball final.

Embiid has been jeered mercilessly during the Paris Olympics by the home crowd, who are upset he chose to represent the United States after previously accepting French citizenship.

Getty

Getty

Getty

The Philadelphia 76ers star has effectively played the role of a WWE heel during Paris 2024, feeding off the boos to help lead Team USA to the final against France.

And he has a vulgar message for fans who plan to boo him during the gold medal game.

“Frankly, I don’t understand why I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from the crowd,” Embiid said, per ESPN .

“They’re going to boo me. I’m going to go back at them and tell them to ‘suck it.’

“And so it’s going to be fun.”

Embiid says representing Team USA in international competition made the most sense for him despite having a number of choices, including his native Cameroon.

“Having lived half of my life in the U.S. and the other half in my country, Cameroon, it just looked like it was, you could go two ways,” Embiid said.

“I said, from the beginning, and everybody knew that if Cameroon would’ve qualified, that would’ve never been a choice.

“And then having the family [in America] and having built a lot of things and having accomplished a lot of things in the U.S. and then knowing the group of guys deeply, it just made it easy.”

Embiid says he understands why his international representation has become a storyline during the Olympics.

“I think a lot of people wanted to [make it an issue] because of storyline and all that stuff,” he said.

“But to me it’s whatever it takes to win to gold. So that’s what I’m focused on.

“It’s all about Team USA against France.”

The rift began when Embiid revealed in an interview with L’Equipe in 2018 that he would be open to playing for France in Fiba competition.

“My native country (Cameroon), France and the United States are my current options,” Embiid said .

“I just want good management.”

How to watch the Olympics in the US

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While you may feel very far from the 2024 Paris Olympics , you can stay up-to-date with all of the action right from the comfort of your sofa.

You can watch on:

• Peacock
• Sling
• Hulu
• Fubo

Or if you’re not able to watch, you can follow along with The Sun’s live blog for the latest updates from France.

According to The Athletic , Embiid met a number of times with Jean-Pierre Siutat, the president of France Basketball about a potential partnership.

Siutat then made huge efforts to secure Embiid French citizenship even though he had no residency rights or direct heritage claims.

But Embiid then decided to represent Team USA in 2023 despite having secured a French passport for himself and his son, causing huge anger in France .

“I consider this boy a great player as much as he is a dirty guy,” former France star Frederic Weis said, according to Eurohops.net .

“I hate him for the things that he did. I think he doesn’t have any respect for France and also for all the people who are asking for a French passport and don’t get it.

“And under the pretext that he is a great athlete, he got it. I find it scandalous, I find it embarrassing.

“I don’t care about his excuses, cause they are his words, and his words mean nothing.”

Embiid hinted he could represent Cameroon at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“I think being with Team USA, the group of guys that we have, the people around us, made it easy to just enjoy and then Paris is a great city, too, and then the next one is in LA,” Embiid said .

“We will see, I don’t know. Maybe [the next one] might not be with Team USA, maybe it might be with Cameroon.”