The referee of an amateur football match in Gérardmer (Vosges) was attacked by a player on Sunday and, having lost consciousness, was taken to the nearest hospital, AFP learned from the club of the player involved. and the Epinal gendarmerie on Wednesday. The meeting opposed, Sunday at midday, Gérardmer to Dommartin-lès-Remiremont, in Departmental 3 (11th division).
At the end of the match, after a tense meeting, a player from Gérardmer and the referee “put themselves head to head, the referee fell and (the player) shot him in the ground (…) He gave him a kick in the head”, according to the testimonies collected by the president of the club, Fabrice Defranoux, who did not attend the meeting.
“Slight loss of consciousness”
The referee, targeted by “a headbutt” then, once on the ground, by “a kick”, suffered from a “slight loss of consciousness”, specified the gendarmerie of Epinal, joined by the AFP. The referee “did not really know where he lived and was taken to Remiremont hospital (30 km away) to scan”, explained Fabrice Defranoux, which the gendarmerie confirmed. “An investigation is carried out by the Gérardmer brigade. (…) The author, born in 2002, is identified and summoned”, added the gendarmerie.
“I stopped all activities (of the club) until the end of the championship. On an act like that, we cannot be indifferent”, assured Fabrice Defranoux to AFP. “There is a problem with the referees, they are always the men to be killed, both by the public and by the players,” he lamented. “When you see the insults they take, you shouldn’t be surprised that there aren’t any more.”