“My phone was ringing every two minutes!”
»And the calls were not friendly.
French referee Willy Delajod spoke Monday in the columns of Le Dauphiné Libération about the insults he received after the Ligue 1 match OM-Monaco (2-2), played on January 27 at the Vélodrome stadium.
“I had to face a lot of opposition on social networks,” explains the man who was heavily criticized for having inflicted a red card on Monaco defender Guillermo Maripan in the 11th minute, before the expulsion of his partner Denis Zakaria in end of meeting.
Also a real estate business manager, the 31-year-old referee was targeted directly on his phone: “I received anonymous calls to insult me, my phone rang every two minutes.
» He deplores the pressure that weighs on officials: “When a club feels wronged, it pushes all its weight on a referee who will find himself alone against 3,000.”
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“We are not robots”
Spared the following weekend to protect him but also to “sanction him for this poor performance”, Willy Delajod was accompanied by a mental trainer before returning to the field two weeks later, for the Lens-Strasbourg match (3-1) .
He most recently officiated during Lorient-Nantes (0-1), Saturday.
If he chose to speak out, it is so that “we can discover a little more about what is hidden behind the whistle”.
By providing his testimony, he hopes to change the perception of referees: “We are men and women, not robots.
People think the referee is indestructible but no.
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