The last round of the league season was played on Friday evening in the second highest men’s division in French football. It ended in an unimaginable atmosphere. Those promoted to the main series are still open.
The two best teams in Ligue 2 will be promoted to the top division of French football. We went to the last round of the second series in a situation where league leader Le Havre had practically secured promotion.
Instead, Metz and Bordeaux fought for second place and the second promotion spot. Both had 69 points before the final round.
Bordeaux hosts Rodez. The away team took the lead by Lucas Buades by hitting after 22 minutes of the match had been played. After this, a supporter ran from the stands onto the field and pushed Buades, who was celebrating his goal, into the ground.
Buades had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. The referee directed the players to the dressing rooms and said that the match would not be continued. According to the referee, Buades had lost consciousness.
– The player cannot continue because he has a concussion. We have respected the rules, so the match will not be continued, referee Nicolas Rainville stated.
The disciplinary body that manages France’s two highest league levels will meet on Monday to decide how to act in the situation.
– I would like to see this resolved on the field, in a sporting manner. We will be present at the committee meeting on Monday and will defend all our rights and, if necessary, file a complaint, announced the Bordeaux club boss Gerard Lopez.
The case is made especially difficult by the fact that Metz and Bordeaux were supposed to play their last league match at the same time on Friday.
Metz beat Bastia 3–2 in their own match. After that, Metz’s fans celebrated the promotion wildly and rushed onto the pitch.
If the match between Bordeaux and Rodez is played again later, Bordeaux knows that it must win by at least four goals in order to overtake Metz as second in the league and move up to the main league.
Rodez, on the other hand, is falling to the third tier. If Rodez wins Bordeaux, it would keep its place in the league.
– Shall we continue the match? Shall we start over? I have never seen a match played after the last day of the season, Rodez chairman Pierre-Olivier Murat updated.
Violence in the stands has been talked about a lot in Europe during the current season.
Read more: A pitch-black week in Dutch football – experts were shocked by the violence in Europe: “It’s a matter of time until someone loses their life”
For example, a couple of weeks ago in the semi-finals of the Conference League in Holland, AZ Alkmaar fans attacked the section of the stands of the winning team West Ham, where there were many families of the players.
Sources: Reuters, BBC, The Guardian