Paris Saint-Germain – Olympique de Marseille. This unmissable meeting of French football is always played under high tension. Referees face challenges from players and coaches. But are the latter more dissenting today than in the last century? To get an idea, we compared two classics, that of December 18, 1992 (0-1 for OM), a meeting renamed “the butchers’ match” for the violent tackles that the 22 players of October 16, 2022, won by PSG (1-0).
Thirty years ago, at the Parc des Princes, the match had been extremely rough: 55 faults in total, including 33 in the first period, for 6 yellow cards. The first is committed by the Parisian Laurent Fournier from the second minute. No objection from him. With a wave of his hand, he even apologizes to Michel Girard, the man in black. A short-lived serenity. All the rest of the match, the players claim faults, cards and contest the refereeing decisions. The sidelines are also boosted. The man with the whistle is forced to sit Raymond Goethals, the Olympian coach, to calm down. At the end of the meeting, there were 30 disputes. One every three minutes.
In autumn 2022, the attitudes are the same, even though the match is much less bumpy than in 1992. But here again, the referee is called out at regular intervals, to demand penalties, touches, hand faults. At the 72e minute, Samuel Gigot is sent off by Clément Turpin for an uncontrolled tackle on Neymar. The Marseillais then hasten to surround him to tell him that he is wrong. During this match, the Parisian coach, Christophe Galtier, is reprimanded by the man in black after too many comments on his decisions. Finally, 16 disputes marred the meeting, half less than thirty years earlier.
Despite the myriad of protests in both games, no yellow cards were shown for this reason. This is the proof that in thirty years, the regulatory framework which could make it possible to sanction disputes is still just as disconnected from the reality on the ground, and left to the goodwill of referees isolated in the face of the “pack”.