The French Sports Minister calls an emergency meeting to study the incidents in Ligue 1

The bottle that the player Dimitri Payet, from Olympique de Marseille, received this Sunday at the Lyon stadium, which caused the suspension of the match, It has sparked further outrage in French football, which is experiencing a season plagued with incidents.

“It is inadmissible, intolerable,” said the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, who together with her colleague from the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has called for this Tuesday an emergency meeting to study the situation.

In it will be the president of the Professional Football League (LFP), Vincent Labrune, who in statements to the French newspaper The team confirmed that the incidents that French football is experiencing “ruin all the work of sporting and economic improvement” that the French clubs are doing, taking advantage of the arrival of new stars to their teams.

The Disciplinary Commission of the LFP also reacted immediately and, as a precautionary measure, ordered the closure of the Lyon stadium, waiting for a final decision on the case and the future of that league match on December 8.

For now, the decision will affect only one match, the one scheduled against Reims next day 1, but everything indicates that the sanction will be aggravated and that, in addition, it may cost Lyon points in the classification.

Payet, as announced by Marseille, also decided to report the incident caused by a bystander who was promptly arrested and taken to the police station.

For now, the sanctions are French football’s response to all these incidents, although there are already voices calling for deeper and far-reaching reforms to tackle this wave of cases.

Payet, a player from La Reunion, a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, He was already the subject of another bottle at the beginning of the season in a duel against Nice, which took place with a quarter of an hour remaining and also led to the suspension of the duel.

Then, the Marseille player threw the same bottle into the stands, causing Nice fans to take it with him and invade the field, generating a sorry image of fights between players and the public.

Nice saw their stadium close three games and a point was taken away from them in the standings. The match was repeated a few weeks later.

A few days later the affected was the northern derby between Lens and Lille, when local fans invaded the field to try to reach the area where the visiting team were, which resulted in six injuries, the match suspended and the withdrawal one point to each team.

Other incidents have been recorded in Montpellier, Angers or Saint-Etienne, whose field was invaded even before the start of the game, in protest at the poor performance of the local team.

Historian Sébastien Louis, a specialist in the ultra phenomenon in football, considers that all these cases must be separated and denies that it is a generalized phenomenon in French football, which places them in a situation similar to that of their neighbors.

However, consider that this season there is a greater excitement from the fans, who have been able to return to the stands after 18 months of absence caused by the pandemic and some relaxation of security also linked to covid.

“The fans are more active, we see it in the use of flares or the scenery they do in the fields. It is normal after so many months without being able to go to the field ”, assures the expert to EFE.

Along with this, the financial problems that several clubs are going through, many of them caused by the pandemic and by the withdrawal of the multimillion-dollar television contract that Mediapro had signed, means that less is invested in security.

In addition, many of the security employees that clubs usually hire, unemployed in recent months, other jobs were sought, so now teams find it difficult to have experienced and well-trained people.

These personnel are paid less than in other leagues, adds the historian, who points out that they charge half or, in some cases, a third than in leagues like the Danish one.

The expert also believes that there is “paternalism” of leaders of some teams with ultra groups, although in his opinion that is not the root of the problem.

“It is a fundamental problem that cannot be solved urgently. It takes years of work with the fan associations. The repressive response, by itself, does not solve the problem, ”he says.

Labrune, for his part, believes that “the clubs have good will but are unable to cleanse their fan groups of violence” while “the public authorities do not assume” their role of controlling security.

In the meeting that he will hold with the Ministers of Interior and Sports, he will ask “that everything be turned upside down” in terms of security and launch “a national pact” to “stop this gangrene.” (D)