METZ, France (AP) — After surviving a fatal bar fire in Switzerland on New Year’s Day, French soccer player Tahirys Dos Santos has signed his first professional contract with Metz.
The Ligue 1 club announced the one-year contract signing late Monday, nine days after the 19-year-old defender returned to play for its reserves team.
Dos Santos was severely burned in the fire at a bar in ski resort Crans-Montana in the early hours of Jan. 1 that killed 41 people and injured more than 100.
“This moment has an even more special meaning after the difficult months I went through in the hospital,” Dos Santos said in a club statement. “This test made me stronger and taught me to never give up.”
The French teenager, who has family ties to Cape Verde, joined his local club Metz at age eight. His return to action on April 11 was in the French fifth-tier division.
Metz is last in Ligue 1 and will be relegated to play in the second tier next season.
A product of Metz’ youth academy, Dos Santos is described by the club as “a tireless worker and exemplary both on and off the field.”
After being named captain of the reserve team at the start of the season, he began training with the first team and earned his first call-up at the end of December for a French Cup match.
“I am very happy and proud to sign my first professional contract with my training club. It’s the culmination of many years of work, sacrifice, and determination to achieve my childhood dream,” he said.
That dream could have come to an abrupt end in Crans-Montana. But Dos Santos managed to survive the inferno.
While he could have escaped before the fire spread, he turned back to rescue his girlfriend Coline from the restroom.
“We had been in the bar for thirty or forty minutes, the atmosphere was good,” he told L’Equipe newspaper earlier this year. “Coline wanted to go to the restroom, so I went with her. I came out before she did and headed toward the exit. That’s when I saw the flames. I immediately understood we were in danger. I didn’t think — I turned back to get her. I shouted her name, and she immediately saw in my eyes that something was wrong. She followed me right away.”
Dos Santos recalled that he was separated from his girlfriend after they both slipped in a staircase as panic spread. L’Equipe reported that Dos Santos suffered burns to his back, face, hands and arms, and underwent a skin graft. Coline was evacuated to a hospital in Belgium and spent three weeks in a coma, undergoing surgery three times.
“I want to send all my support to everyone who is still fighting, never lose hope,” Dos Santos said.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - People stand around floral tributes and candles placed outside the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, on Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni, File)
LONDON (AP) — The ex-civil servant behind the decision to approve Peter Mandelson 's appointment as British ambassador to Washington says he felt political pressure to rush through the appointment despite security concerns.
Olly Robbins, former head of the Foreign Office, said those concerns did not relate to Mandelson's relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He declined to say when questioned by lawmakers what led the government's vetting agency to flag Mandelson as a potential security risk.
Robbins said the vetting agency considered Mandelson a “borderline case” and was “leaning toward recommending against” giving him security clearance.
The Foreign Office decided to clear him anyway. Robbins was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week over the decision. Starmer is facing questions about his own judgment, and calls to resign, over the appointment.
Robbins told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that there was an “atmosphere of pressure” coming from Starmer’s office.
He said there was “a very, very strong expectation” that Mandelson “needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible.”
Robbins said there was “a generally dismissive attitude” to the security vetting in January 2025, before Mandelson went to Washington.
Starmer acknowledged on Monday that he made the wrong judgment when he picked Mandelson for the job. But he said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he’d known about the security vetting.
Starmer has placed blame squarely on Foreign Office officials, who he said failed to tell him about the security concerns and approved Mandelson’s appointment despite them.
He called it “frankly staggering” that officials didn’t tell him about the failed vetting, which took place in January 2025. Starmer says he only found out last week.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
He has ordered a review into any security concerns arising from Mandelson’s access to sensitive information while ambassador.
Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He picked Mandelson as ambassador despite being warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein exposed the government to “reputational risk.”
Mandelson’s business links to Russia and China also set off alarm bells. But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The scandal has caused gloom among lawmakers in Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings. Starmer already defused one potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to resign over the Mandelson appointment.
Mandelson is under police investigation for suspected misconduct in public office after a trove of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January included emails suggesting Mandelson had passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.
British police launched a criminal probe and arrested Mandelson in February. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.
FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
Peter Mandelson is seen with his dog outside his home in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 to face a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
