The government unveiled on Thursday, December 16 reinforced security measures in the face of repeated incidents in Ligue 1 stadiums, including the permanent interruption of a match if a player or the referee is attacked or the ban on bottles in plastic. These measures go “in the right direction”, reacted on franceinfo Bixente Lizarazu, 1998 world champion and franceinfo football consultant.
franceinfo: Do the measures announced seem sufficient to you?
Bixente Lizarazu : This is a step in the right direction, although I do not believe it will be enough. But this is the start of something. I think it was important to mark the territory and explain to some supporters who behave badly, who are extremely aggressive, who allow themselves to enter the stadium, to throw things at the players, that they don’t have nothing to do in a football stadium. Coming to a football match is a spectacle, it is a pleasure. We come to support our team and we do not come to attack opposing players or opposing supporters. We got used to more and more violence. There are fewer and fewer limits. I also believe very much in individual sanctions. Because, if we have a stadium of 40,000 people, we must not penalize 38,000 people who behave well for 2,000 who behave badly. So you have to target individually, there is video for that. And we need radical sanctions, that is to say that they are removed from the stadiums definitively. Because, when you enter a stadium to hit a player or throw something at a player while taking the risk of seriously injuring him, it means that we don’t like football and that we has no notion of the respect one should have towards the players who themselves produce a show. They need serenity. It is unacceptable that our land is not protected, not made safe. This is the minimum that we should ask our leaders, that we can offer a show with all the serenity it takes. And that serenity, unfortunately, is disappearing
What additional measures would you have liked?
When we start a process, we cannot have the answers to everything. It is quite complex to come to terms with all that. For example, putting gates to separate the field from the stands, it’s horrible to go back to that. We have done everything to eliminate the screens or the fillets. We don’t want that. We don’t want the supporters to be in cages. There are people who come to see football matches with other intentions than to enjoy a spectacle and who put themselves in states of aggression and hatred who have nothing to do in a stadium. I don’t have the answers to everything. If I were in the place of the people who decide, I don’t think it would be easy either. For example, we have the case of Dimitri Payet. Some guy threw something at him. Him, you grab him and take him out of the stadium for life. It doesn’t even have to go through a fan’s head the possibility of entering a pitch. It’s forbidden.
Have you noticed a change in behavior in the stadiums compared to when you were in the field?
It’s been 20 years since I quit. So, I have a commentator’s vision, an observer, more than a player’s vision. When I was a player, I experienced games where we were insulted. You could feel the hatred in the platform, the cobbled buses. It also existed in our time. It is true that there, we had a sequence. I don’t know if it’s the excitement, people are very nervous after going through this Covid period. And suddenly, we had a series of unacceptable behaviors. We have the impression that it was the overbidding to the one who will be the most stupid in the gallery. Me, I’m happy that we stop the matches. And I said that the players had to, at some point, if the leaders were not doing things, decide to leave the field. This will put pressure on any fan who has lost their mind. This is where you have to be strong. This is where you have to be able to have enormous solidarity. And to say, it is our ground that must be respected, whether it is our supporters or the others. It’s the same story. It’s more complicated to be able to face your own supporters. But I think you have to be fair, honest. And honesty is about protecting the stadium, the players and the referee.