Incidents during Nice-OM: individual sanctions for the Marseillais, who plan to appeal

“It is a decision commensurate with the seriousness of the incidents which had an exceptional impact.

It is past 11 pm, and Sébastien Deneux has just completed an interminable session of the disciplinary committee of the LFP which he chairs.

The menu of this exceptional session, relocated to a Parisian hotel for the occasion: the incidents which interrupted in the chaos and after an invasion of the lawn by local supporters the Ligue 1 match between Nice and Marseille, on August 22 .

And this Wednesday evening, the verdict is more in the direction of OM.

The League commission has indeed decided to replay the meeting, interrupted in the 75th minute when the Niçois were leading 1-0, on neutral ground and behind closed doors. In parallel, the Riviera club is sanctioned by the loss of a point in the standings, plus another suspended, three games behind closed doors including the one to be replayed against Marseille and the one already played without an audience against Bordeaux.

The Marseillais receive individual sanctions, with the suspension of an assistant to Jorge Sampaoli, Pablo Fernandez until the end of the season for a punch to a supporter of the OGCN.

Alvaro Gonzalez and Dimitri Payet respectively take two games of suspension and one suspended, the first for throwing a ball in the popular stand, the second for throwing the bottle he had received in the back towards the public, a response that had provoked the invasion of the land.

OM would have liked to have the match won on the green carpet

The security aspect therefore prevailed over the sporting aspect and the arguments of OGC Nice, which intended to win their case by leading 1-0 at a quarter of an hour from the end and while the Marseillais had refused to return to the lawn of the Allianz Riviera after the interruption despite the request of the Professional Football League and the Prefect to resume the match. According to a person close to the file, the referee of the meeting Benoît Bastien, present Wednesday evening, repeated that he had judged at the time that the security conditions were not met to replay football.

“What was essential for us was the degree of importance of the incidents,” says Sébastien Deneux.

The best and fairest decision is to replay the game.

“A verdict that does not satisfy OM, however, mounted in Paris hoping to have a meeting won on the green carpet.

"We believe that the commission had to be more severe in the face of violence and the duty to set an example," explains the club's communications director, Jacques Cardoze.

HERE YOU HAVE THE GUILTY // AQUI TENEIS EL CULPABLE pic.twitter.com/hOLGqpDoHj

- Álvaro González (@AlvaroGonzalez_) September 8, 2021

Shortly after the verdict, Alvaro Gonzalez also expressed his dismay on Twitter. "Here you have the culprit", wrote the Spanish defender on Twitter, accompanying his publication with a photo of him facing the Nice fans on the night of the match. The Marseille club plans to appeal the decisions of the League's disciplinary committee to the higher appeal committee of the French Football Federation. Nice, for its part, did not react to the sanctions this Wednesday evening.