“French football leaders must stop hiding behind their little finger”, declared the Minister Delegate for Sports Roxana Maracineanu Monday, November 22 on franceinfo, the day after the attack on Dimitri Payet during the Lyon-Marseille match. According to her, the Professional Football League and the French Football Federation must make decisions because “it is the survival of French football that is at stake”. “It has to stop”, she stressed.
>> Lyon-Marseille: bottle spray on Dimitri Payet, crisis meeting, waiting, stoppage of the match … What happened at Groupama Stadium
franceinfo: What is your reaction after the incidents on Sunday evening?
Roxana Maracineanu: I would like to tell Dimitri Payet that we are totally with him, this is not the first time that he has been attacked in this way, and also to tell the spectators who were present that we understand their disappointment at having had to return home after four minutes of the game. I believe that the leaders of French football must stop hiding behind their little finger. We must stop systematically passing the ball back to each other as was the case last night when making decisions. We have to manage to put everything on the table.
“This is the sixth attack in the world of football, it has to stop. These types of problems, it is up to the League to resolve them.”
Roxana Maracineanu, Minister for Sportsto franceinfo
We must take the height and say that today we must solve the problem even if indeed when we are caught in the stake of the match, each one defends a little his parish. But everyone must understand that today it is the survival of French football that is at stake, its economic model. We cannot afford to deplore that football rights are constantly falling, nor can we afford that a broadcaster who has bought rights has to furnish like [les commentateurs] did it last night for an hour when we do not know if the match will continue. We cannot collectively allow it to happen like that. There are security conditions to put in place from the start of the match to guard against this kind of thing. We see that it happens systematically.
The referee took two hours to announce the suspension of the match. Why so long?
There are things to change in the rules so that the referees, when they make their decisions, can have free rein, it must be marked in black and white. In the texts, it is well written that it is the referee who decides after having listened to all the people present and having taken into account all the considerations including those which are external to the match. The referee needs to know what he can and cannot do. Today, in the disciplinary regulations, it is not marked that, for a projectile throw at a player and when the physical integrity of a player is affected, the match is stopped. It is not marked black and white. So the League and the Federation must sit around the table, look at their ethics committees to know how far we modify the disciplinary regulations and how far we give indications to the people who make decisions. on a field.
The person who threw the water bottle at Dimitri Payet was arrested. Is it sufficient ?
It wasn’t just the physical assault. Dimitri Payet’s physical integrity was damaged, but also moral integrity. We cannot say that it is good, we took the person who was incriminated and we took him out – which is already good, it is an individual measure that I wanted – but we can see that the public and the supporters did not dissociate themselves from this person since when the player left the field, it continued even more. You can’t let a sportsman like that on the pitch humiliate or let him be attacked like that.
Should we punish clubs whose supporters insult or attack footballers?
Football has the only disciplinary regulation that does not provide for penalties for the club against their own supporters. Everywhere else, in handball, in basketball, we can incriminate the club public and penalize the club because its public, its supporters have acted badly in the stands. Today, in football, that does not exist in the texts. Everything must be done, it’s up to them to think.