This is an anecdote that can revive some bad memories for PSG supporters. Unai Emery, PSG coach between 2016 and 2018, knocked on the door of his locker room during the weekend following the “Remontada”, the famous 6-1 against Barcelona in 2017. Paris faced Lorient, Chapron was on the whistle and he had pretended not to have seen the match three days earlier so as not to have to answer the Parisian coach’s funny question: “I thought he had come to challenge a not very judicious decision that I had taken (… ) But not at all. He tells me Mr. Chapron, I have a question to ask you about the Barcelona match. Can you explain the referee’s decisions to me? When we are a referee we are a little united. I lied to Unai Emery. »
The former official, who became a consultant for Canal +, returned to this sequence and to the questionable decisions of his former colleague during a twenty-minute subject available on the site of the encrypted channel. “From a quiet match, we will move on to a match that will become a powder keg” from the 3rd minute and Luis Suarez’s goal will launch the Barcelona comeback. Five years later, Tony Chapron refers to the Uruguayan as a “ball” that the referee, Denyz Aytekin, had to carry throughout the meeting, lost by PSG (6-1) and synonymous with elimination.
For Chapron, the first flaw dates back to the composition of the refereeing body. “For UEFA, the score of the first leg means that this match must be a cakewalk,” he explains. For the occasion, the body launched an inexperienced referee at this level and an additional referee almost new to C1, Benjamin Brand.
“On his first decision, the additional referee is in panic. “He will be at the origin of the tipping point of the game, at the start of the second period. While Aytekin seems to be telling Neymar, broke in the area, to get up, Brand’s intervention will definitely weigh down his match. “It’s the one who is furthest away, the one who is the least experienced, the one who shouldn’t be refereeing at this level, who will rock the game. He goes to talk to the referee, while surrounded by Barcelona players. Thus, Brand “imprisoned” the chief referee, obliged to validate the opinion of the additional referee.
Throughout the subject, Chapron distils details which explain the hell experienced by the German official, between psychological warfare with the supporters, physical intensity of the match, balance of power inside the refereeing corps and a number of yellow cards. disproportionate. Nevertheless, the consultant defends him from any dishonesty, in view of a muscular, and unsanctioned intervention by Thomas Meunier in his area in the first period.
