the essential
For the first time since a Lens-Toulouse scheduled for the end of 2023, Hakim Ben El Hadj will lead an RC Lens meeting at Bollaert, this Sunday (3 p.m.), he who does not have good relations with the supporters of the “blood and gold” .
“The bigger it is, the more it goes.” This, to summarize, is how Lens supporters welcomed the appointment of Hakim Ben El Hadj as referee for the meeting between RC Lens and TFC scheduled for this Sunday, January 5 at 3 p.m. Indeed, Northerners do not have very good memories of the 46-year-old man.
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Already at the whistle of a Lens-Toulouse on September 24, 2023 at Bollaert (2-1 victory for Lensois), the referee had, a year earlier, been in the front row when Jimmy Cabot was seriously injured with the “blood and gold. Supporters criticize Hakim Ben El Hadj for not having taken the piston injury into consideration. Victim of a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, the former FC Lorient player never recovered. More than two years later, on December 19, 2024, Cabot announced his retirement at the age of 30.
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“I’m going to get red or get hurt…”
A timing which raises many questions and triggers the anger of the Lensois. However, one of them, via ” replied Jimmy Cabot in a humorous tone.
I’m going to get red or get hurt brothers, don’t mess around
— Jimmy Cabot (@Cabot_Jim) https://twitter.com/Cabot_Jim/status/1874099840751460629?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In February 2023, the latter had already sent a small dig during the meeting between Brest and Lens while Hakim Ben El Hadj was at the VAR. “Mdrrrr the guys in the truck… it’s terrible. My friend Ben El hadj again who is in trouble” Cabot wrote on his social networks during a match marked by numerous refereeing errors. So much so that RC Lens even published “the compilation of the forgotten VAR”.
It was also after the match against Toulouse, at the end of 2023, that the site Allezlens.fr published a post on the referee. “This referee had proven to us in the past, whether on the whistle or on VAR, that he was not “Lens compatible”” we can read at the very beginning of the article. “We are already dreading the day when he will once again be on the whistle for an RC Lens match, a match that the Sang et Or will once again play outnumbered…” also wrote the Lens supporters site.
