If blowing the whistle is usual for a referee on a pitch, doing it into a ball, and not the one the players are used to hitting, is much less common. Especially when it happens in the middle of a meeting. On March 24, while the teams from Merville and OC Roubaix were competing in an amateur championship, the man in black saw the gendarmes arrive at the break with an unusual request.
France Bleu, which reports the facts, reveals that the constabulary carried out an alcohol test on the referee after forty-five minutes on the pitch deemed suspicious by the Roubaix OC team. Last in the championship, the Roubaisiens started the match with ten men and after 30 minutes of play and they even found themselves with nine men following the expulsion of one of their number for “
excessive behavior and inappropriate gesture.”
While at the break, Merville was heading towards an assured victory, already leading 3-0, the Roubais clan alerted the gendarmerie who arrived a few minutes later. According to France Bleu, the test carried out in the locker room turned out to be negative.
The referee ended the match
However, the meeting never resumed! The referee, “shocked” according to the radio, simply put an end to the debates, taking care to make a report to the legal commission of the Flanders football district. Experienced, he did not at all appreciate the joke and the fact that his professionalism was being called into question. He would consider further action against those who suspected him of being drunk on the meadow.