We will still have to wait to find out where the Olympic will be played. After the Rhone club bus was stoned before the Ligue 1 match between Olympique de Marseille (OM) and Olympique Lyonnais (OL) on Sunday, the Professional Football League (LFP) announced on Thursday, November 2, that the meeting would be rescheduled for December 6. The president of the body, Vincent Labrune, explained that the location of the match would be determined “later”, pending “additional elements from the public authorities guaranteeing the safety of the actors and the public”.
Neither team therefore knows at the moment whether its wish will be granted. The Lyonnais hoped to play the match at the Stade-Vélodrome behind closed doors, or on a neutral pitch. Due to the attack on their bus by around a hundred individuals, the Rhone residents no longer feel safe playing in Marseille in a stadium that will be full. “If everything was done well on Sunday evening, as the prosecutor and the prefect say, then we can no longer go and play at the Vélodrome,” argued Xavier Pierrot, deputy general director of Groupama Stadium, to the media OL Play.
For their part, the Phocaeans explained that they wanted to host OL again in front of their supporters. OM does not understand why it could be sanctioned in this case, given that the events did not take place within its premises.
Thirty days of ITT for Fabio Grosso
Injured by the projectile jets on Sunday, OL coach, Italian Fabio Grosso, had twelve stitches and was prescribed thirty days of temporary incapacity for work (ITT). Six out of ten coaches carrying supporters were also damaged, four of which were unable to leave, and the car of OL president John Textor was targeted as he left the stadium.
The LFP, which had not condemned these incidents in the press release released just after the cancellation of the kick-off, was very discreet before rendering its decision. In an interview with RMC the next day, Arnaud Rouger, the director general of the body, recalled that the events had taken place 500 meters from the stadium and were therefore not his “responsibility”.
When giving the new date of the meeting, Mr. Labrune recognized that the first press release from the LFP was “a little too factual and laconic”, but assured that the facts “were extremely serious and intolerable”. The former president of OM also made a point of recalling that the league had been “the first to file a complaint”.
The president of LOSC, Olivier Létang, whose club travels to Marseille on Saturday evening as part of the 11th day of Ligue 1, sent a letter to Frédérique Camilleri, the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, to obtain “certainty that the physical integrity of the Lille delegation and its supporters is fully ensured.” The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the president of OM, Pablo Longoria, and the president of the LFP are copies of the missive.
