Olivier Letang's rant on the calendar

Olivier Letang had a message to convey. Wednesday evening, Lille won against Sturm Graz (3-2), as part of the 6th day of the Champions League championship phase. After the meeting, the president of LOSC presented himself in the mixed zone to provide an update regarding his team's schedule. He points to the scheduling of the match between Lille and Olympique de Marseille this Saturday, thus leaving “ least 72 hours » to his team to rest. “ The idea is not to complain, because we have a match in less than 72 hours. The boys will be ready. Afterwards, we must question the functioning, the authorities. This will be our 25th match (since the start of the season) against Marseille. OM's 15th. I therefore wonder about the fairness of the competition, the health of the players and the quality of the show. Because you are playing a Champions League match, less than 72 hours later, you are playing an important match which can count at the end of the season. And once again, regardless of less than 72 hours, it's 25 matches against 15. And you noticed that there are two clubs who played yesterday in the Champions League (Brest and Paris) and who will play on Sunday. »

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Before adding: “ once again, we're not here to complain. We are focused, the boys will be there at the meeting. But I think that as part of the reflections that must be carried out both for the health of the players and for the quality of the spectacle and the fairness of the competition, I wrote to the authorities, to the Federation and to the League, because that we must protect football. There are a lot of players who are injured. I had authorization from the president of Olympique de Marseille to play on Sunday. I had permission from a broadcaster (BeIN Sports) to play on Sunday. And despite everything, we find ourselves with a match less than 72 hours after a C1 match. Everyone needs to look at themselves. We are in professional football, we are all very professional and we are going to take professional football to the top “, he indicated. The message could not be clearer.