Dimitri Payet is in pain after receiving a bottle in Lyon. /
The international footballer was attacked when he was about to launch a corner kick after two minutes of play and, after two hours of deliberations, the clash was not resumed
New and serious public incidents in French Ligue 1. On this occasion, the match between Lyon and Olympique de Marseille this Sunday had to stop as a result of a bottle hit by midfielder Dimitri Payet. The aggressor has been identified in detention.
The event occurred two minutes after the crash. Marseille’s ’10’ was about to launch a corner when objects began to fall around him, incidents reported by the party delegate. When calm seemed to return, Payet tried to set the ball and was hit near the ear by a full water bottle thrown from the stands.
The Marseille captain, who did not even see the object fall, was left in pain on the pitch for a few minutes, surrounded by players from both teams and members of his club’s medical staff. He then walked into the locker room with an ice pack on the left side of his face.
Referee Ruddy Buquet did not hesitate, stopped the game and sent the players to the changing rooms of the Groupama stadium in Lyon, always very hot and much more in the duels against Marseille. After the events, the arbitration representatives met with the leaders of the two clubs to hold a crisis cabinet in order to find a solution.
After lengthy deliberation, it was initially decided that the match should resume. “This is an isolated act and the person has been arrested. The match is going to resume, but it will be definitively suspended at the first incident “, warned the ‘speaker’ of the Groupama Stadium. However, Marseille’s refusal ended the suspension, after two hours of uncertainty.
It so happens that the French international had already suffered such an attack in August, specifically in the match against Nice. Then, Payet returned the bottle that had been thrown to the stands. That match was interrupted a quarter of an hour from the end and was played again behind closed doors in Troyes, neutral territory, on October 27 (1-1). In addition, Nice was sanctioned with two points less in the table.
The current season of the French championship is marked by numerous incidents in the stands, which altered among others the duel between Marseille and PSG, on October 24 at the Velodrome Stadium. Some prominent voices in French football, such as the former Barça player Thierry Henry, who is currently a commentator on the matches for Amazon Prime Video in France, have described this situation as shameful: “It is an idiot who has thrown a bottle at Payet. I do not understand. It makes the image of French football abroad fall ”, he remarked.
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