Speaking to Amazon Prime Video, Marseille President Pablo Longoria reacted to tonight’s match with Lyon being suspended and not restarted because of his player, Dimitri Payet, being hit on the head by a water bottle.
“It is a clear question, it was the position of the club that the referee had to make a decision. Above all there was a question we were asking, owing to the psychological state of the players. It is a dark evening for football, we came to play a match. The sporting decision was to stop the game, aside from that there are a lot of questions to analyse but mainly sporting. Dimitri is affected psychologically, this is not normal. We have always condemned all types of violence, it impacts everyone. Nobody who likes football can be happy tonight. The impact was a bit violent, he was very affected, with ice on his head in the dressing room.”
“I am going to have to respect what the league says. We need to ask questions, reflect. It is not normal what is going on at the moment with this violence, these instances. We have to ask real questions, the show must be on the pitch. It is a question of integrity… Sincerely I don’t have a solution. We are sport people, it depends on the authorities, the league’s disciplinary commission. To guarantee a good show, we need to find solutions.”