Guest of After Foot Thursday on RMC, Medhi Benatia, OM sports advisor and future sports director of the Marseille club, returned to his differences with the French referees.
An interview lasting more than an hour where all the subjects were covered. Sports advisor to OM since 2023, and very soon sports director, Medhi Benatia was the exceptional guest of After Foot this Thursday on RMC. The opportunity to look back on the first part of the Marseille season, the ambitions of the management and Roberto De Zerbi, the transfer window file and the Paul Pogba track, but also the arbitration. On this subject, the former Moroccan international did not mince his words. And recognized his incomprehension after seeing Wilfried Singo escape any sanction during Monaco-Paris (2-4), Wednesday, despite an impressive sole on the face of Gianluigi Donnarumma.
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An action which caused a huge reaction even though the match referee, François Letexier, had decided two months earlier to exclude Amine Harit during Marseille-PSG for a gesture deemed dangerous on Marquinhos. “Pfffff… I didn’t think much of it. I was waiting for the referee (François Letexier) to explain himself at the end of the match, as he had done with us. What he didn’t not done. When I see that, I am short of arguments (during Marseille-Paris), he explained that he saw the mark on Marquinhos’ chest. He took out the red card, even if Harit did not. does not see the player and that it’s involuntary. So when I look at yesterday’s action… I’ve followed all the major European championships for 20 years, I’ve never seen a player come out disfigured like Donnarumma! ‘After Football.
“We will continue to speak and make ourselves heard”
Recently, he was also frustrated by the refereeing of Willy Delajod during the draw conceded by OM against Lille (1-1). On his X account (formerly Twitter), he retweeted a message from a Marseille account pointing out the action of the Lille equalizer at the end of the match. “In the Lille match, there are of course things to say. Look at the goal. I’ve made blocks in my career… They say that there is the right to pass. But this is a real charge on Balerdi In addition to that, before the goal, the player who scored (Bafodé Diakité) should have been out for 20-25 minutes. He made a number of mistakes… Neal (Maupay) said it to the. arbitrator. But it doesn’t matter, there may have been situations on the other side. The score is fair. I saw two great teams. I congratulated Lille, a great team. , who regrets more generally a lack of dialogue and communication with the arbitration body in France.
Medhi Benatia is the guest of the After in Marseille / On refereeing: “I was waiting for Letexier to come and explain himself last night as he did after OM-PSG” – 12/19
“What frustrates me here is that in Italy you have referees who are a little touchy but they agree to talk, you can talk with them. Here you can’t talk! It’s not possible. Whenever you want talk they make you wait 45 minutes in front of the door…”, lamented the former Roma and Juventus player. Sanctioned this season with a six-match suspension, three of which are firm, after his outing against Benoît Bastien, the OL-OM referee who had expelled Leonardo Balerdi in the first minutes, Benatia calls for a “different dialogue” between the referees and other football players.
“Player, I never took a card for complaints,” he recalled. “I said it when I was in committee. Today, when I speak, they say that I threatened. When I shout because there were people in the corridor, they say that I I asked for respect for the people of Marseille, I was given six matches every weekend, but strangely no one was summoned. don’t know what to say, I don’t understand, but we’re going continue to speak and be heard.”
