Olympique de Marseille have criticised the Ligue de Football Professionnel’s (LFP) decision to ban their sporting advisor, Medhi Benatia, for three games
The sporting advisor was banned for his comments following the club’s clash with Olympique de Lyonnais on Sunday the 22nd of September where Benatia took exception to the performance of the referee and his rulings to send off Leonardo Balerdi in the fifth minute and award Lyon with a penalty.
In an announcement published today, the club acknowledged the sanction on their sporting director but made it clear that they did not agree with the ruling. “The club strongly disagrees with this decision and finds the treatment of its sports advisor to be totally disproportionate,” the club stated, “given that he was not guilty of insulting or threatening the refereeing body officiating during the match against Lyon.”
The statement continued, “This decision is all the more surprising and incomprehensible because it is neither coherent nor balanced in light of similar situations or events that have occurred recently or in the more distant past on which the commission has ruled.”
Marseille’s sporting advisor escapes more serious punishment
Benatia’s ban was less than what had been expected when first reported as “disrespectful comments outside of a match” can carry a four to five-match ban. The league had taken exception to the sporting advisor’s comments at the DAZN microphone, where he said “We are worried when we see that it is Mr. Bastien who is going to referee us.”
“It’s serious, what happened is very serious… There are too many things that we can’t let go, the president can’t let this go, there are too many dubious things in this match,” Benatia continued. Comments which had escaped punishment on the 25th of September, but would be the subject of examination on the 2nd of October by the disciplinary committee.
