The question arose: will there be an audience in Perpignan during the UBB trip on Saturday June 1st? The answer is yes following the decision of the LNR disciplinary committee after incidents during the USAP-Clermont match.
The Catalan club is fined 25,000 euros after the actions of some of its supporters during the USAP-Clermont match on May 11. Referee Jérémy Rozier left the stadium protected by security, to boos and projectiles. Many expected an exemplary sanction and perhaps a closed session for the last home match of the blood and gold, the match against UBB. Former Top 14 referee and now referee trainer, Stéphan Pomarède returned to the facts and the sanction.
France Bleu Gironde: surprised by what happened during this 23rd day?
Stéphan Pomarede: Refereeing at Aimé Giral is no small thing. The particularity of Aimé Giral is that to return to the locker room, you pass under the stand which is behind the posts. And that’s where the referee, when things don’t always go very well. Names of birds are one thing, but then if the referee receives projectiles, it’s another.
Did you know him during your career?
It never happened to me at Giral, but it has already happened to me at other stadiums. It’s always very complicated, very frustrating because we analyze the match we played at full speed. Then sometimes, we don’t understand why there are these excessive reactions. And sometimes it ends where there is a disciplinary committee.
The club is fined 25,000 euros. Is the sanction sufficient?
No, for me it is not enough because being limited to a financial sanction is not enough. Behind there is a lot of work to be done. But this work is not now, it should have been started a long time ago. We know that this audience is very complicated and that in these somewhat acute, somewhat complex situations, it is enough for the result not to be favorable to their team for fanatics to attack anyone. So no, it’s not enough. That being said, I didn’t expect more because clubs have never been sanctioned to the extent of playing matches behind closed doors or in a very, very exceptional way. And in recent years, that has never happened.
Isn’t it a mistake for a Clermont referee to referee Clermont?
I think that now we have to move beyond that. They are professional referees. Yes, Jeremy Rozier played as a youngster in Clermont, but when Romain Poite refereed Castres Toulouse, we did not ask the question where Romain Poite was all from. This is a false argument. The club could have possibly rejected Jérémie Rozier, but Frank Azéma knows him very well, he trained him at Clermont Ferrand, so he trusted him completely.
