The Bordeaux-Rodez match, decisive for the outcome of the 38th and last day of Ligue 2, was definitively stopped on Friday June 2 after Rodez striker Lucas Buades was attacked by an intruder who entered the lawn, announced the match referee.
“During the Ruthenian goal celebration, a spectator entered the field and came to attack, violently push a Ruthenian player,” the referee said at a press conference. “The elements are conclusive, the player cannot resume the game because he is concussed. We have complied with the regulations, namely that the match will not resume, “said Nicolas Rainville in a press conference, as the Girondins played for a possible return to Ligue 1.
“He had a concussion, he wasn’t well in the locker room. There he went to the hospital,” confirmed Didier Santini, the coach of Rodez. “It’s heartbreaking to find yourself with a player off the table in a game with so much importance, and people being so stupid,” he said. “The League, the Federation, the clubs have to find (a) solution and we have to be much tougher. »
Buades was treated for three minutes before returning to the locker room in turn when his team had just opened the scoring in this decisive match for the rise on the Girondin side, for the maintenance on the Ruthenian side. The referee indicated that the player had been examined by both his club doctor and the emergency doctor on duty.
The Professional Football League announced the holding of a meeting of its disciplinary committee on Monday. “The LFP Disciplinary Committee will meet on Monday to study the follow-up. The LFP strongly condemns this act of violence against a player and wishes a speedy recovery to Lucas Buades,” the LFP said in a statement.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra hailed “the firm decision of the LFP”: “Violence has no place in the stadiums and our line is clear: zero tolerance”, she tweeted, warning that she will be “very attentive to the sanctions that will be taken by the authorities and by the courts”.
Shortly after 11 p.m., the president of Bordeaux Gerard Lopez appeared in turn at a press conference. “To preserve the rights of the club and the institution, which is the most important, we will file a complaint against the individual,” said the leader, who praised the behavior of the 42,000 people present at the stadium who “left in absolute calm when it is a situation that could have been tense in many clubs”.
Wishing that the epilogue of this Bordeaux-Rodez “is played sportingly and on a field because it’s still football”, he added that his club “will assert all (its) rights, as well as the rights on appeal” Monday before the disciplinary committee. “We will see what the remedies are but we are not forbidding anything this (Friday) evening, added a source close to the club. As it stands, the movie of events is unclear. We really need to sit down and look at what happened.”
This decision could spell the end of the Girondins’ ambition to return to Ligue 1, a year after leaving the elite: on this final day, the Bordeaux club had to win and hope for a misstep from Le Havre or Metz, respectively first and second before this final day, to win his ticket.
This new incident sends French football back to its worst demons after a 2021-2022 season punctuated by numerous overflows in the stands, in particular a throwing of a plastic bottle that targeted Marseille midfielder Dimitri Payet during a stormy OL-OM match. The Disciplinary Committee of the Professional Football League had decided to withdraw a point from OL, and to replay the match behind closed doors, at the Groupama Stadium in Décines-Charpieu.
After these clashes, French football had tried to tackle the problem head-on, supported by three ministries (the Interior, Sports and Justice), with in particular the clarification of the decision-making process in the event of a match interruption. . But the overflows were regularly invited in the stadiums, between repeated projectile throwing, smoke bombs in shambles, invasions of the field, as again in Le Havre on Friday evening… Clashes which forced the authorities to an escalation of disciplinary sanctions, including the Girondins and their dream comeback could pay the price on Monday.
